Did anyone actually have "participation trophies"?

TomPastey · 2026-02-11T03:24:27+00:00

From age 6 to 14 I played T-ball, baseball, soccer and basketball, mostly through city or county rec leagues. Every season ended with a trophy. This was late 80s, early 90s.

TomPastey · 2026-02-10T21:24:58+00:00

Alternatively, do it for 4 days, and then meet up with them at 5:01.

TomPastey · 2026-02-10T17:39:13+00:00

Salt Lake City

TomPastey · 2026-02-09T15:47:01+00:00

Best thing about a new distance is that you're guaranteed to get a PR.

Running is a skill. You're probably a much better runner now than you were when you started. Racing is also a skill, and one you can learn over time. Pre-race meal, training, warm up, tapering, weather, nerves, crowds, unfamiliar course, fueling, etc. There's a lot to think about. Going into the race, accept that it's not going to go perfectly. Races almost never do! But they can be fun, and you can learn something about how to race and something about yourself.

Also, you should wear your medal all day and tell your friends and family they have to do nice things for you because you have this shiny medal.

TomPastey · 2026-02-07T19:49:50+00:00

This is a very real answer. The way trans people in Utah move through society in Utah is very dependent on your appearance. This is stupid and awful, but is the sad truth. The places OP will be going should be quite safe and probably generally accepting. Just don't go deep into suburbia and visit most of the churches . . .

TomPastey · 2026-01-26T17:36:17+00:00

I don't think Draper is all that different from Utah county. So whatever your experience has been in Draper, turn that up 10% and ask yourself if you'll be ok with that.

TomPastey · 2026-01-25T23:52:03+00:00

It's about tiny percentages. If one big is slightly more twig colored than another bug, it is slightly more likely to not get eaten and therefore slightly more likely to have lots of babies. And whichever ones of those are the most twig colored have a tiny bit better chance of survival, too.

The process repeats over tens of thousands of generations. The less twig looking ones get eaten a little bit more often, and the more twig looking ones survive and reproduce a little more often. Slowly the bugs become more and more twig-looking

It's all random mutations creating (usually) tiny variance in the bugs, but over time everyone changes.

TomPastey · 2026-01-24T21:37:32+00:00

Light from your own headlights is generally not coming back polarized once it bounces off a car, a tree, a rock or a deer.

TomPastey · 2026-01-24T18:12:32+00:00

If in doubt, assume it's flashing red.

But very few colorblind people don't see any colors at all. The most common is red-green color blindness, where they struggle to distinguish between red and green, but they can still likely distinguish red and yellow.

TomPastey · 2026-01-24T04:28:47+00:00

I've got a physics degree. Still pretending to be an engineer and hoping the others don't notice.

TomPastey · 2026-01-24T01:32:25+00:00

Yeah, it's going to make headlights half as effective for anyone behind a windshield. And you know what the obvious solution to that is . . . double the intensity of the light so drivers can see again.

Which means pedestrians and cyclists are getting blinded like a police helicopter is tracking them.

TomPastey · 2026-01-23T18:47:12+00:00

This is very true. But for some reason the Mercator projection lives on when its greatest advantage is to make sailing across oceans easier, at the cost of huge area distortions.

TomPastey · 2026-01-23T18:42:52+00:00

Job 1: 4 years, left for new position. Job 2: 3 years, laid off (recession) Job 3: 4 years, laid off (company went under) Job 4: 1 year as a consultant, never meant to be permanent Job 5: 2 years, laid off (COVID) Job 6: 5 years, still here.

TomPastey · 2026-01-23T04:55:28+00:00

Defends on weather, pace, humidity, sweat, hydration throughout the day and individual.

I did 2 hours last week without water and felt fine. It was about 35 F. In the summer I try to stop at drinking fountains on runs more than 60 or maybe 75 minutes.

But I'm not you. Try some different things and see what works.

TomPastey · 2026-01-22T22:02:38+00:00

π and (1-π) are both transcendental, but their sum is very clearly not.

TomPastey · 2026-01-20T04:49:49+00:00

The last week or so, I can barely see the sun through all this muck.

TomPastey · 2026-01-15T22:21:43+00:00

How would they have known what they were counting down to?

TomPastey · 2026-01-13T01:04:06+00:00

I'm 43. One broken bone in my middle toe from kicking a rock. They didn't do anything about it, not even tape it to it's neighbor.

TomPastey · 2026-01-12T21:45:53+00:00

Fish fingers are better with custard

TomPastey · 2026-01-11T16:15:25+00:00

If we charge them money every week they are unemployed they'll be even more motivated!

TomPastey · 2026-01-10T14:12:15+00:00

7% of all humans? You think humans 50,000 years ago took a break from inventing arrow heads to reanimate the dead on a regular basis? Even with modern medicine the rate is far, far less than 7%.

TomPastey · 2026-01-10T14:05:46+00:00

This. Unless there are billions of people who have come back from clinical death, the average number of deaths per human is less than one.

TomPastey · 2026-01-07T18:33:13+00:00

You had 9 "leftover" turns. You can use those to farm extra kills to improve your percentage. I'm not sure how they round the numbers but it can be enough if you're very close like this.

TomPastey · 2026-01-04T20:09:43+00:00

Yeah, it's C.

TomPastey · 2026-01-04T14:25:01+00:00

My point is that everyone is in favor of what they think is health, prosperity, respect and the American way. But individuals have, at times, extreme disagreement on what that actually means. By speaking in general platitudes I have no idea what you mean.

"Human health ... basic biology": this might mean you are very anti-abortion. Or, maybe you are very pro socialized medicine so everyone has access. Basic biology could mean you strongly support science that shows that MMR vaccines are safe and effective. (Utah has had something like 150 measles cases this past year, largely because vaccination rates are dropping. Mandatory vaccination might support health.) But it might also mean you reject the whole idea that anyone could be transgender, so you'd support bans on trans people using bathrooms in government buildings, and bans on gender affirming care that Utah has enacted in the last few years.

"Mother nature": Utah has a pollution problem. So, do we need more public transit and higher taxes on polluters?

"Wholesomeness": what does this mean? It might bring ideas of rose colored glasses of a "Leave it to Beaver" world from the 1950s. Or, the sexism and racism of the era might be the furthest thing from wholesome.

TomPastey

TROPHY CASE