It’s a type in pokemon. Only weak to fighting. Widely considered the neutral type since it doesn’t have many strengths or weaknesses offensive or defensively. Interestingly enough the only type in the game that can’t hit for super effective damage.
UrsulaDavina
Also it’s attacks don’t work on ghost types and vice versa. I really prefer Dragons Fairy and Psychic I started Gen 1 where despite few dragons they were open same with Psychic also I like Fairy beacuse it converted some normal types into actually useful mons.
Borkborkbork
This makes so much sense. Also why Amber, a Fighting type, couldn’t get rid of Mike for how long, as Ghost can affect Fighting but Fighting can’t affect Ghost.
One day, I’ll try to finish Pokemon with only normal-type. Because of challenge.
(Of course it will be done with Generation 1 game).
Aussir
Wouldn’t even be that hard. Spearow can be caught at like level 3 and Fearow is quite strong for that game and Dodrio even more so later. You can snag Clefairy in Mt Moon, and about halfway thru the game you can get a pair of Snorlax and then it’s just over.
Borkborkbork
Or literally any game. Normals are some of the most versatile types, and many are extremely powerful. They have an insane number of dual types, not to mention get STAB on Return an early-game move with a max power over 100, as long as you’re playing older gens.
Playing through as literally any other type is far more of a challenge.
Paradox
The few times I’ve ever TRULY struggled to beat a gym, it was a normal type gym
Normal types are OP
Casi
Oh god Whitney’s Miltank has flashbacks to the miltank hitting rollout after rollout
Roborat
I had a Fearow as one of my main party, it kicked ass.
Deathjavu
If you’re really looking for a challenge, you could try ironmon or Kaizo randomizer challenges. Watching a streamer try (and fail, repeatedly, literally over a thousand times) to beat Kaizo is what got me hooked back in.
Normal is a continuous probability distribution that is symmetrical on both sides of the mean, so the right side of the center is a mirror image of the left side.
A miserable little pile of secrets. But enough talk, have at you!
(Other possible answers included “the force one object exerts upon another perpendicular to its face”, and the more serious “an aggregation/average of common perception”)
Normal is a vector parallel to the axis of rotation (direction determined by the right hand rule) with a magnitude equal to the angular velocity or momentum. In other words, every attempt to present something as normal is pure spin.
“Normal” is what characterizes the situation of the overwhelming majority of people. In other words, what’s normal is the anxiety of watching the world around us going to shit at an accelerating rate while we are powerless to effect any sort of change, because the people who call the shot, they are not normal and they don’t care.
Le Corbusier said that: “A house is a machine for living in.”
I think of that a lot.
A body is a machine for living.
A brain is a machine for thinking.
A heart is a machine for feeling.
A community is a machine for growing.
A planet is a machine for holding and sustaining us all.
A job is a machine that pumps out money in exchange for work.
So when I have a certain thought, or a set of repetitive thoughts or behaviors or actions, or a certain food, or expose myself to certain people, I can ask myself:
“Is this good fuel for my machine?
Will this help me keep my machines running?
How long do my machines have to run to get the job done? How can I keep them in good working order long enough?”
I think about that a lot.
Nothing we experience is forever.
It’s not even long.
It’s just a certain set of tasks that need to be accomplished before we can finish, and a certain set of inputs (food, money, love, hope, pride, self-worth, community…) that allow us to get those tasks done.
…Maybe that doesn’t make sense. I’m sorry — I’m tired, and I’m very, very sad right now.
But it does help, I think, if I can think of my life as a table to be balanced, a set of instructions to be fulfilled, a project to be done.
Maybe that helps others cope with uncertainty, too.
I think Joyce is coping with a lot of uncertainty right now.
A brain is a machine for thinking and feeling. A heart is a machine for pumping blood. Many of the things you mention are indeed machines, but that is not all that they are. Analyzing them solely as machines can be misleading.
Just I think it’s worth noting that the definition of a “machine” is not necessarily universal, and as they are able to do more and more every day, more and more what we once thought was common sense about “machines” is getting thrown out the window as we speak.
Clif
Machine — an apparatus using or applying mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task. — Oxford Languages.
Humans are more than an apparatus. Relationships are not things. Electrical power is not mechanical power. Joy is not a task.
Laura
I dunno. I often think of emotions and relationships as tasks.
Balance sheets. They’re transactional.
Like when I comment on a website or attend a social event I’m building social capital with that community, which may potentially be available for debiting when needed later. Putting in face time.
Like how some parents can pencil out “quality time” for their kids, specifically for bonding, because bonding is healthy for the kids. Logging the hours to get the job done. Because they care about the job of raising healthy kids.
People sometimes think that’s cynical and heartless, but I don’t think so. It doesn’t seem that way to me, anyway. “Ruthless and calculating,” is sometimes just figuring out the right thing to say at the right time to meet the needs of the situation and the people around. That can be a form of caring — like how Dorothy approaches the people around her as puzzles to solve. Because she cares about them.
Deathjavu
Personally very much not a fan of mind/body dualism, as it leads to all kinds of crazy non-disprovable and harmful beliefs, like souls, or that people can “overcome” their “sinful” biological impulses, or that mental disorders are willpower problems.
Also, mechanical power *is* electrical power. Mechanical motion between two objects on the macro level is just electrical repulsion on an atomic level.
Besides the fact that machines’ parts can use electrical and electro-chemical power like human brains do, if a “machine” is able to perform more than one task and/or any of it’s parts are able to fulfill multiple needs of the whole thing functioning, does it suddenly cease to be a “machine”?
Laura
I think of a machine as a set of tools or processes put together for a specific purpose or set of purposes.
Deathjavu
Very, very complicated, self-assembling machines, all the way down to the molecular level. A pretty far cry from anything we’ve made, really.
Geneseepaws
M coming around to the idea that the Rete is the organ of feeling, or… at least a better true false detector than my Brain is.
Laura
Fascinating! What’s a Rete? Is it the vascular system?
Geneseepaws
It’s the neural net, associated with the expression “gut feeling.”
Le Corbusier was a fascist (in the literal sense that he was part of fascist league with the actual word fascist in it). I wouldn’t trust him with any kind of philosophy.
Laura
Really! Wow! I had no idea. So odd… I studied Le Corbusier extensively in college and they never talked about his fascism.
…Which is weird, because they talked a lot about the political movements associated with other styles of architecture and decor. Why would they omit Le Corbusier? Did I just blank that part out? Man… now I’m questioning my memories!
So bizarre that I could have learned so much about the man and never hear of his politics.
This was decades ago, though, so maybe the architecture professors weren’t as conscious of political nuance back then? Hm…
khn0
There was an expo lately in the Pompidou center for modern arts where they were criticized for it and they said: “but we alreedy told that part 35 years ago!”. That’s always the same bullshit when speaking about fascist France: the myth is that the resistance was everywhere. Hint: it wasn’t, and there isn’t an excuse like in germany where potential resistants were murdered before with the blessing of the right wing socio-democrats. In the eastern part of the country, people were force integrated in the SS, so you can’t even speak of people who didn’t got forced bc it’s a “sore point” and it’s insensitive to call out that not all were force integrated.
From 45, all Europa is a shitstorm, because capitalism needed nazis friend to be pardoned to keep the infrastructures in place, and France particularly so. Shit, Céline and Cioran, sometimes even Drieu, are still considered as great authors (wtf did they do that other didn’t? You can’t exist alone in arts, you always successor and predecessor to someone at least, breaking points arent like in sciences a moment of invention but a gradual change influences by a whole society) and their antisemitism is always camouflaged under “nihilism” or “misanthropism” syndroms.
So yeah, I lived in many cities with one or more building designed by Le Corbusier, got some architect friends for years, and nowhere I read about it, until I actually met some local historian that was pissed about how it’s now an indisputed figure – while it has with modulor a clear patriarcal bia (he built for 180 cm men!), and he was not only a fascist follower but leader!
Yeah, Jennifer was a little defensive there. Question hit a little too close to home there, Jennifer?
Love the alt-text: “Are you there, Joyce? It’s me, Billie.” (hat tip to Judy Blume)
Also love Jennifer’s choice of words. I think she started out saying, “sloppy empathetic,” as in “sloppy drunk,” or “sloppy lovey-dovey”. She caught herself, though, because she knows Joyce is NEVER sloppy! So instead she said, “slipshod empathetic”. As in, someone who walks their shoes so far and on such rough roads that they’ve worn the heels all down to holes. Slipshod.
The most careful and care-full choice of word for someone who is all worn out from caring so much about too much and too many.
…Jennifer is a “word nerd” if I ever heard her! ;-D
(Sorry if my words come out wrong. My brain’s all sloppy right now.)
Finally figured out how to search by character tag for multiple people, which made it easier to narrow down to that strip. Not even sure this is the only example given Ruth’s an english major.
Laura
Oh, cool, thanks Deathjavu!
Sirksome
How do you search multiple characters? I still haven’t figured that out! Don’t let me accidentally flagging you, discourage you revealing the secret!
301 thoughts on “Slipshod”
Ana Chronistic
what’s normal
ThunderNight
that’s a good question
Sirksome
It’s a type in pokemon. Only weak to fighting. Widely considered the neutral type since it doesn’t have many strengths or weaknesses offensive or defensively. Interestingly enough the only type in the game that can’t hit for super effective damage.
UrsulaDavina
Also it’s attacks don’t work on ghost types and vice versa. I really prefer Dragons Fairy and Psychic I started Gen 1 where despite few dragons they were open same with Psychic also I like Fairy beacuse it converted some normal types into actually useful mons.
Borkborkbork
This makes so much sense. Also why Amber, a Fighting type, couldn’t get rid of Mike for how long, as Ghost can affect Fighting but Fighting can’t affect Ghost.
Amós Batista
One day, I’ll try to finish Pokemon with only normal-type. Because of challenge.
(Of course it will be done with Generation 1 game).
Aussir
Wouldn’t even be that hard. Spearow can be caught at like level 3 and Fearow is quite strong for that game and Dodrio even more so later. You can snag Clefairy in Mt Moon, and about halfway thru the game you can get a pair of Snorlax and then it’s just over.
Borkborkbork
Or literally any game. Normals are some of the most versatile types, and many are extremely powerful. They have an insane number of dual types, not to mention get STAB on Return an early-game move with a max power over 100, as long as you’re playing older gens.
Playing through as literally any other type is far more of a challenge.
Paradox
The few times I’ve ever TRULY struggled to beat a gym, it was a normal type gym
Normal types are OP
Casi
Oh god Whitney’s Miltank has flashbacks to the miltank hitting rollout after rollout
Roborat
I had a Fearow as one of my main party, it kicked ass.
Deathjavu
If you’re really looking for a challenge, you could try ironmon or Kaizo randomizer challenges. Watching a streamer try (and fail, repeatedly, literally over a thousand times) to beat Kaizo is what got me hooked back in.
Laura
Normal is a continuous probability distribution that is symmetrical on both sides of the mean, so the right side of the center is a mirror image of the left side.
Proxiehunter
What is normal
Billie don’t hurt me
Don’t hurt me no more
Agentomega
A miserable little pile of secrets. But enough talk, have at you!
(Other possible answers included “the force one object exerts upon another perpendicular to its face”, and the more serious “an aggregation/average of common perception”)
Reltzik
Normal is a vector parallel to the axis of rotation (direction determined by the right hand rule) with a magnitude equal to the angular velocity or momentum. In other words, every attempt to present something as normal is pure spin.
Opus the Poet
Normal is what is at right angles to the current environment. Learned that in electronic tech class back in 1988.
Taffy
It’s like formal but with more Norm. Of or relating to Norm. Nobody’s sure which Norm we mean.
Needfuldoer
Well, there’s one who spills beer and always has a self-deprecating one-liner on deck, and another who builds things out of lumber…
Judas Peckerwood
Me, dammit! I’m the global standard of normal. Or normal-ish, anyway.
Taffy
Why am I compelled to read your username in a southern drawl? Judas Peckuhwooood
Lars
Normal people frighten me. – Lydia Benecke
temperaryobsessor
Doofinsmirtz son/robot.
someone
“Normal” is what characterizes the situation of the overwhelming majority of people. In other words, what’s normal is the anxiety of watching the world around us going to shit at an accelerating rate while we are powerless to effect any sort of change, because the people who call the shot, they are not normal and they don’t care.
Laura
So true!
Lan
I think it’s a country in Europe?
Sombrero
No, thats Normandy.
Schpoonman
No, that’s the ship from Mass Effect. “Normal” is the real name of the first Green Goblin.
JBento
No, that’s Norman. “Normal” is that cat Garfield hates.
dewelar
No, that’s Nermal. Normal is Ralph Kramden’s buddy who works in the sewer.
SneakyBones
No. That’s Norton. Normal is the comedian that voiced Death in Family Guy.
Sirksome
No that’s Norm Macdonald. Normal is the first stage of a gen 3 fire/ground type Pokémon based on camels.
Casi
No that’s Numel, Normal is Jerry’s evil postman neighbor.
Felix
Actually normal is just a geometric term. It’s the point intersecting line that is perpendicular to a surface. Also known as the Z axis.
khn0
No that’s Nermal, “normal” is the german word for “again”
Yet_One_More_Idiot
Isn’t that a setting on the washing machine?
Stephen Nedland
Normal is what everyone else is, and you are not.
This applies to everyone.
The Quirk
https://www.gocomics.com/thenorm
OBBWG
Normal is a city in Illinois.
Darkoneko
We all are machine that more or less regurgitate everyone else’s reactions
Sirksome
Joyce has been paying attention in her science class.
Laura
Le Corbusier said that: “A house is a machine for living in.”
I think of that a lot.
A body is a machine for living.
A brain is a machine for thinking.
A heart is a machine for feeling.
A community is a machine for growing.
A planet is a machine for holding and sustaining us all.
A job is a machine that pumps out money in exchange for work.
So when I have a certain thought, or a set of repetitive thoughts or behaviors or actions, or a certain food, or expose myself to certain people, I can ask myself:
“Is this good fuel for my machine?
Will this help me keep my machines running?
How long do my machines have to run to get the job done? How can I keep them in good working order long enough?”
I think about that a lot.
Nothing we experience is forever.
It’s not even long.
It’s just a certain set of tasks that need to be accomplished before we can finish, and a certain set of inputs (food, money, love, hope, pride, self-worth, community…) that allow us to get those tasks done.
…Maybe that doesn’t make sense. I’m sorry — I’m tired, and I’m very, very sad right now.
But it does help, I think, if I can think of my life as a table to be balanced, a set of instructions to be fulfilled, a project to be done.
Maybe that helps others cope with uncertainty, too.
I think Joyce is coping with a lot of uncertainty right now.
Clif
A brain is a machine for thinking and feeling. A heart is a machine for pumping blood. Many of the things you mention are indeed machines, but that is not all that they are. Analyzing them solely as machines can be misleading.
Laura
Very true, Clif. Thanks for that perspective.
The Wellerman
Just curious, what do you mean by “machines” in “analyzing them solely as machines”?
The Wellerman
Just I think it’s worth noting that the definition of a “machine” is not necessarily universal, and as they are able to do more and more every day, more and more what we once thought was common sense about “machines” is getting thrown out the window as we speak.
Clif
Machine — an apparatus using or applying mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task. — Oxford Languages.
Humans are more than an apparatus. Relationships are not things. Electrical power is not mechanical power. Joy is not a task.
Laura
I dunno. I often think of emotions and relationships as tasks.
Balance sheets. They’re transactional.
Like when I comment on a website or attend a social event I’m building social capital with that community, which may potentially be available for debiting when needed later. Putting in face time.
Like how some parents can pencil out “quality time” for their kids, specifically for bonding, because bonding is healthy for the kids. Logging the hours to get the job done. Because they care about the job of raising healthy kids.
People sometimes think that’s cynical and heartless, but I don’t think so. It doesn’t seem that way to me, anyway. “Ruthless and calculating,” is sometimes just figuring out the right thing to say at the right time to meet the needs of the situation and the people around. That can be a form of caring — like how Dorothy approaches the people around her as puzzles to solve. Because she cares about them.
Deathjavu
Personally very much not a fan of mind/body dualism, as it leads to all kinds of crazy non-disprovable and harmful beliefs, like souls, or that people can “overcome” their “sinful” biological impulses, or that mental disorders are willpower problems.
Also, mechanical power *is* electrical power. Mechanical motion between two objects on the macro level is just electrical repulsion on an atomic level.
And joy is definitely a task, at least for me.
The Wellerman
Besides the fact that machines’ parts can use electrical and electro-chemical power like human brains do, if a “machine” is able to perform more than one task and/or any of it’s parts are able to fulfill multiple needs of the whole thing functioning, does it suddenly cease to be a “machine”?
Laura
I think of a machine as a set of tools or processes put together for a specific purpose or set of purposes.
Deathjavu
Very, very complicated, self-assembling machines, all the way down to the molecular level. A pretty far cry from anything we’ve made, really.
Geneseepaws
M coming around to the idea that the Rete is the organ of feeling, or… at least a better true false detector than my Brain is.
Laura
Fascinating! What’s a Rete? Is it the vascular system?
Geneseepaws
It’s the neural net, associated with the expression “gut feeling.”
khn0
Le Corbusier was a fascist (in the literal sense that he was part of fascist league with the actual word fascist in it). I wouldn’t trust him with any kind of philosophy.
Laura
Really! Wow! I had no idea. So odd… I studied Le Corbusier extensively in college and they never talked about his fascism.
…Which is weird, because they talked a lot about the political movements associated with other styles of architecture and decor. Why would they omit Le Corbusier? Did I just blank that part out? Man… now I’m questioning my memories!
Laura
Huh. Wild. You’re right!
Just looked it up:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/13/arts/design/le-corbusiers-architecture-and-his-politics-are-revisited.html
So bizarre that I could have learned so much about the man and never hear of his politics.
This was decades ago, though, so maybe the architecture professors weren’t as conscious of political nuance back then? Hm…
khn0
There was an expo lately in the Pompidou center for modern arts where they were criticized for it and they said: “but we alreedy told that part 35 years ago!”. That’s always the same bullshit when speaking about fascist France: the myth is that the resistance was everywhere. Hint: it wasn’t, and there isn’t an excuse like in germany where potential resistants were murdered before with the blessing of the right wing socio-democrats. In the eastern part of the country, people were force integrated in the SS, so you can’t even speak of people who didn’t got forced bc it’s a “sore point” and it’s insensitive to call out that not all were force integrated.
From 45, all Europa is a shitstorm, because capitalism needed nazis friend to be pardoned to keep the infrastructures in place, and France particularly so. Shit, Céline and Cioran, sometimes even Drieu, are still considered as great authors (wtf did they do that other didn’t? You can’t exist alone in arts, you always successor and predecessor to someone at least, breaking points arent like in sciences a moment of invention but a gradual change influences by a whole society) and their antisemitism is always camouflaged under “nihilism” or “misanthropism” syndroms.
So yeah, I lived in many cities with one or more building designed by Le Corbusier, got some architect friends for years, and nowhere I read about it, until I actually met some local historian that was pissed about how it’s now an indisputed figure – while it has with modulor a clear patriarcal bia (he built for 180 cm men!), and he was not only a fascist follower but leader!
Needfuldoer
I’m a machine, you’re a machine
Everybody that you know
You know, they are machines.
Laura
Love it!
Sirksome
Maybe everyone in the cast is autistic! That’s the secret!
Doctor_Who
Plot twist: except for Dina.
Liliet
Dina just cannot get diagnosed.
The Wellerman
“And when everyone’s autistic, nobody will be!!! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!”
*cackles maniacally like Syndrome from The Incredibles* ?
Jahu
[very brennan lee mulligan voice] uh, hell yeah
cbwroses
Your comment made me slow smile.
Laura
Yeah, Jennifer was a little defensive there. Question hit a little too close to home there, Jennifer?
Love the alt-text: “Are you there, Joyce? It’s me, Billie.” (hat tip to Judy Blume)
Also love Jennifer’s choice of words. I think she started out saying, “sloppy empathetic,” as in “sloppy drunk,” or “sloppy lovey-dovey”. She caught herself, though, because she knows Joyce is NEVER sloppy! So instead she said, “slipshod empathetic”. As in, someone who walks their shoes so far and on such rough roads that they’ve worn the heels all down to holes. Slipshod.
The most careful and care-full choice of word for someone who is all worn out from caring so much about too much and too many.
…Jennifer is a “word nerd” if I ever heard her! ;-D
(Sorry if my words come out wrong. My brain’s all sloppy right now.)
Deathjavu
Journalism major! Word nerd is one of the things she shared with Ruth that I don’t think got a lot of attention.
Laura
What did Ruth nerd out on? I forget that.
Deathjavu
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/02-but-the-sun-still-shines/bongo-2/
Finally figured out how to search by character tag for multiple people, which made it easier to narrow down to that strip. Not even sure this is the only example given Ruth’s an english major.
Laura
Oh, cool, thanks Deathjavu!
Sirksome
How do you search multiple characters? I still haven’t figured that out! Don’t let me accidentally flagging you, discourage you revealing the secret!
Laura
Like this: https://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/jennifer+ruth/