?

So, potential oil production from a given resource depends on the spot price of oil. A given field may be able to produce only 10k barrels at $20 per barrel, but 100k barrels at $40 per barrel, 200k at $60 per barrel, and so forth. Yet while it's easy to find global reserves figures with respect to the current oil price, I've found it very difficult to find a list or graph of how global reserve figures would vary over different oil price point. For example, at low oil prices, Saudi Arabia has the world's largest reserves from its light crude, while at higher prices, Venezuela has more from its ultra-heavy, while at higher prices still, the US could potentially have the most due to shale. The price point makes a big difference!

Does anyone have any idea where this sort of data could be found?

Hi all. I bought some land a few months ago and I'm working with an architect to get the house plans done. I want to have as much of a role as possible in building the home, and while I don't plan to manage the project or be the only one working (definitely not!), I'd love to be able to take part in all aspects, including the concrete - foundation and walls/ceiling. I know it's backbreaking work, but for his whole life my grandfather could point to his house and say "I built that" and I want to be able to do the same with mine.

I've worked with wood a good bit before but never concrete. And the home design is a bit unusual (it's somewhat domed and we're looking to use FRP rebar). I've started sending some feelers around looking for places where I could learn basic concrete skills and possibly work as a volunteer on a job site for a few weeks. But I'm curious as to whether there's anything online I can read / watch in the meantime and any tips / info you could provide. Thanks! Again, I don't need to be an expert, just good enough to help with the grunt work as much as possible ;)

From what I've read, Earth's atmosphere generally increases in negative charge at a rate of 100V per meter (varies depending on location) at the surface, peaking at about 300kv at 30-50km altitude, then quickly tapers off - this voltage differential being that which produces lightning when dielectric breakdown occurs. So that'd be E=100V/m. U=mgh = qV. "h" is in meters, and 1 meter is 100 volts, so mg=100q. g=9.81m/s² so m~=10q and q~=0,1m.

Is this, to say, that if you positively charged a kilogram of mass by taking out more than 0,1 coulombs of electrons that it would rise up in Earth's electric field to 30-50km altitude, a sort of electrostatic balloon? Would a potential implementation of this be, say, to have a conductive super-light aerogel insulated with a non-conductive super-light aerogel to prevent dielectric breakdown and other charge loss mechanisms? I know that carbon aerogels can vary in conductivity and can now be produced at a fraction the density of air. What I'm fuzzy on is how one would figure out how much static charge one could store in an object.

Could someone enlighten me as to whether my logic is correct here, and if so, how to calculate what sort of material properties would be necessary?

(Sorry, rather long)

My boyfriend (we'll call M) has a rather dark past. He was pretty messed up back then, hung out with some bad people, did some bad things, etc, but he's since gone to rehab and is a totally different person today.

M had a friend in the old days (we'll call him J). J contacted M out of the blue about six months ago to help him move. M wanted to give J a chance, to see if he'd changed as well (J now has two kids and a steady job, etc), so he started being friends with him. Including on Facebook.

I met J only one time in person. He was nice and charming, but there was something off with him. He also had some nasty-looking deep wounds on his hands. I discovered afterwards that he'd been attacked just recently, right before he moved to town. He'd been charged with rape in a different city, and the police believed it, but they couldn't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt and he walked free. Some of the girls' friends were so mad that they took things into their own hands.

Needless to say, this didn't make me any more comfortable around him. But he was M's friend, so I didn't make any sort of scene. And indeed, I'd pretty much forgotten about him until a couple weeks ago.

M had recently made a bunch of new friends, and suddenly I got a friend request from a J. on Facebook; we had a common friend listed, M.. I figured it was one of his new friends, so I added him and was nice to him. I didn't think it'd be the old J. because I hadn't heard from him in half a year and only ever spoke to him in person once.

Turns out, it was him. And later M told me that he'd been talking with J, and mentioned that J knew that M and I had been having some relationship troubles, asked whether we were still together and asked what M would think if he hit on me. M said (correctly) that he and I were working on patching things out, but apparently J sounded like he might try anyway. M warned me that as much as he had been messed up in the old days, J had always been much worse. Apparently J had even planned at one point to import girls to start a prostitution ring, but his plans went awry when he was arrested for embezzlement.

Two days ago, M had to leave for a few weeks to head to his father's workshop about six hours from here so he could rennovate his falling-apart truck (he's staying with his father during that time). The very next day (yesterday), J sent me a message asking whether I knew CSS and how to run webservers (which I do), and said that he had a project he'd like to work with me on. I told him I'm too busy (still being polite and friendly). He then asked out of the blue how things are going between me and M.

I of course told M right away on Facebook and stopped talking with J. M started getting worried because he's so far away. Apparently when he and his ex broke up, J started going after his ex, who had no interest in him, but J kept bugging her. Later her house was broken into and she suspects that J did it. Now M is worried - about me, about his kids... M is far away and he has no idea what is going on with this guy, but given J's track record, he's really concerned. And I'm concerned too.

What should I do? M thinks I should suddenly cut off all communication with J and defriend him on Facebook. But I worry that could backfire, especially if I just ran into him somewhere and had to explain myself; I don't want to aggrevate him. I'd be more comfortable simply only responding in a boring, delayed, and uninteresting manner when he talks to me, in hopes that he'll eventually get bored of me and move on to something else (I was thinking that I'd still implement some Facebook restrictions on what he can see, though).

What do you think is the right course of action here?

So, my boyfriend is rather insecure. He has low-self esteem and so he has trust issues that I would cheat on him or leave him for someone else. For me, the concept is absurd. I don't cheat and I don't betray trust - the only reason I would ever leave is if he was treating me badly.

He started getting jealous perhaps four months ago that I go to concerts often. He doesn't like concerts (social anxiety, the drinking, etc) and so doesn't go with, even though I still invite him just to make sure he knows he's welcome. He started getting mad at me when I talked about concerts. When he found my Airwaves ticket which I'd purchased months earlier and forgotten about he accused me of trying to "hide" going to a concert from him. After a while of talking, he eventually admitted that he's just afraid that when I'm out I'll meet a better guy and leave him. Since then, I've tried to convince him to lighten up by joking together, "Okay, I'm off to a concert to meet a better guy. See you tomorrow!" and him joking back. But I can always tell when he jokes back that it's forced, that he still has big insecurities.

So, anyway, last night I was at a concert with one of my favorite bands. And at the end of it, the lead singer came up to me and thanked me for coming, said it was great to see me again (I come often and know them, I'm friends with one member on Facebook), and gave me a free T-shirt, which was so awesome of them. So I changed into the T-shirt.

On the way home, it did occur to me that my boyfriend might be suspicious because I came back in different clothes. But rather than change back, I found the concept funny, that he could actually suspect me of just going out to a concert and cheating on him, then coming home in different clothes as the "AHA!" moment ;) I was even tempted to take off my underwear to make it worse; I found the whole concept funny. I know I shouldn't have, I shouldn't do anything that exploits his insecurities, but at the same time, his insecurities are kind of an insult to me, and so a part of me wanted to make light of them.

At home, he got immediately suspicious and got all quiet and refused to talk about what he was suspicious about, but I quickly could tell what was wrong. But again, I still found the whole thing funny, that he'd actually suspect me, and so I gave mildly evasive answers to his questions on purpose. At night, I finally got him to admit that he was suspicious, but he said he knows it's just in his head. It took like half an hour for the conversation to reach that point, and I had to try to restrain from laughing the whole time.

I also wrote a post on Facebook thanking the lead singer of the band (who I'll call X) for the shirt and for the great evening. My wording was a bit ambiguous and while I mentioned his name I didn't mention that he was the lead singer of the band... again, I could have been clearer, but I found it funny not to be.

Today I got a Facebook text from my BF who apparently just read the status and sent me a message at work rather than waiting until I got home: "I have to ask. Who is X ?" And now my immediate instinct is to delay my response instead of responding right away, to play on his suspicions. Or not respond at all, or even hide the Facebook post.

I feel like I'm an awful person for finding it funny and playing up his fears. But at the same time, his fears are so absurd, and insulting to me.... I don't know, it's as if, if he can't trust me, when I had never before done anything to give him reason not to, when I trust him, even when he's practically flirting with his ex or one of our common friends... the whole situation is just absurd. And so part of me wants to play it up - if he trusted me, I wouldn't feel the need to joke about it.

I don't know, what do you think, am I a bad person here?

First off, I just wanted to thank all of you who helped with my questions previously. For those just joining us:

At the start of 2012, I was working as a contractor for a company in Iceland, while living in the US. The objective of that time period was to learn their systems while my permits went through. Several months later when they did, I moved to Iceland and shortly thereafter became a full-time employee.

I had initially assumed that my time in the US would be likewise considered to the IRS to be as an independent contractor and that I would need to file a schedule C and schedule SE. Based on comments from Quick Answers and others, however, I was surprised to learn that the IRS would not likely consider me a contractor. I did some more research and this appeared to be the case; that this is a fuzzy area in tax law that's often annoyed accountants, but telecommuting to only one company generally makes their location your tax home, and that there was even legislation introduced to codify that after 30 days working remotely, it would become your tax home.

The problem now is that there's absolutely no way the Icelandic company would give me a W2. One, they don't consider that I was an employee, just an independent contractor. Two, there's no way that I *could* have been a full time employee under Icelandic law (I had no permits). Even if they wanted to help me on this, there's no way that they'd fill out something basically stating that they were doing something in violation of Icelandic law. From their perspective, anything involving what the IRS says is my issue; to them, I was not an employee.

So the question is, what do I do about not having a W2? My tax home would be Icelandic, which would make that regular wages... but I have no W2 to to accompany them and cannot get one.

Also, I looked up Icelandic tax treaties as was suggested. According to the treaties, I was neither a "resident of Iceland" ("Any person .. resident in Iceland for the purposes of its tax"), since Iceland does not consider me a resident for the purposes of its taxes, nor a "resident of the United States" ("Any person .. resident in the United States for the purposes of its tax"), since the IRS would consider my tax home to be Iceland! There are provisions for if a person is a resident of both states and for when they're a resident of only one, but not for where they're a resident of neither. Am I in some sort of loophole here?

I'll reiterate that I don't *want* to be in a loophole, I want things to be as simple as possible and just to pay whatever I fairly owe. My goal is that the IRS be happy with me so that I can give up my US citizenship after I become an Icelandic citizen after 3-6 more years (depending). But it's a confusing situation. I can only guess that the proper approach would be to do nothing special with the Icelandic side, figure out what would have been owed to the IRS had I been treated by the Icelandic company as a regular US employee and given a proper W2, and then ultimately deduct that away with my foreign income exclusion that I accumulated after moving to Iceland?

I wish I could find a professional to do my taxes so that I didn't have to make these decisions (still no luck). :Þ

As mentioned in another question, I started out 2012 as an independent contractor living in the US working for an Icelandic company, and I then moved to Iceland and became a full time employee. The purpose of the time as an independent contractor was to learn the systems while doing what was necessary to get permits and relocate; that was the only reason I was hired (it wasn't some temp work that just happened to become permanent).

What I'm wondering is:

A) Can I deduct my (quite significant) moving expenses on my Schedule E as a business expense, since moving was a requirement of the job? Seems like I should be able to, but I want to be sure.

B) Most of my moving expenses happened while I was still an independent contractor and living in the US. However, some of them were delayed costs - for example, I sent my car over, but I had to wait for it to arrive and then wait to be processed by customs before I could pay customs. Would these still be deductable, as they were the result of an action taken while I was an independent contractor?

C) What about form 3903 ("Moving Expenses")? Would I still include that with my taxes if I was counting them a business expense?

And just to be sure: the following are other things I was planning to deduct - if you see anything in here that's not deductable, please let me know!

* Standard Reykjavík lodging and meals deduction rate from the state department website ($316 a day) for the 29 days I spent either on the way to/from or in Iceland while living in the US (was there to learn the systems).

* Car rental during that time

* Gasoline for such

* The cost I had to pay when there was a car accident on a rental car.

* The portion of the home I was using as a home office

There will probably be a few other things too.

I'm so confused. This is my first time to do my taxes on my own, and it's an unusually complicated situation. I started out 2012 working for an Icelandic company while living in the US (as a contractor), finally got my permits, then moved over to Iceland (on a permanent basis) and became a full time employee. On my 1040, the foreign tax credit more than handily makes up for any taxes I'd owe. But my understanding is that I also have to file a schedule SE because I was an independent contractor (right?), and it seems that theres no foreign tax credit for that. So even though I paid a lot more taxes to Iceland this year than I'd owe to the US, it looks like I'm still going to have to pay (quite significant) taxes on the schedule SE. Is this correct? Or is my work for the Icelandic company somehow not applicable for a schedule SE? It seems so weird that if I'd been a full time employee, all my US taxes would be deductable, but because I wasn't, I'd get left with a heavy burden.

If this is all too complicated for an untrained individual to manage, can you suggest a tax firm that won't cost an arm and a leg?

So, in a recent interview, Julian Assange elaborated on his reasonining for why he feels that the US DOJ has a sealed indictment against him:

"JA: If the person hasn’t been arrested yet, it’s normal. The indictment is sealed. And then, by law, it is a criminal offense, for any U.S. official aware of the sealed indictment to tell any person, even another U.S. official, of the existence of the sealed indictment, except in the course of executing a warrant.

...

JA: Under their own procedure, if you ask “Are you a subject, target or witness for a grand jury inquiry?” they are meant to tell you. They refuse to do so.

CH: So if you were to ask if you’re a subject, target or witness for a grand jury, they would have to tell you.

JA: They are meant to. The guidelines are, the prosecutorial guidelines are that they should tell you. And they refuse to engage with the question at all.

...

JA: But when you say, “Who should we speak to about it?” they go, “that guy, that guy”—you know, there is a “guy” that is responsible for answering that question, and he refuses to touch it. Why? Well, the easiest explanation is that he would be in breach of that law that says you can’t."

---

Honestly, that sounds nonsensical to me. Is it actual DOJ procedure that "...if you ask “Are you a subject, target or witness for a grand jury inquiry?” they are meant to tell you", as Assange says? What kind of idiotic policy would that be? Wouldn't that render the whole concept of a secret indictment moot, that all a person has to do is ask, and if there's a refusal to respond, then that means there's a secret indictment?

I'm working on a top-10 list, "Top 10 Ways To Get Assange Out Of The Embassy", but so far I've only got two that I really like so far:

* Tell him that his cross is outside and you've brought some nails.

* Just wait until he is asleep then carry him out of the embassy. He has taken planes millions of times when awake so it should be OK.

Can anyone think of any other good ones?

I'm in the early planning stages of building a custom home, and I'm thinking about using shotcrete extensively for the walls (needs to be strong loadbearing and curved, so it seems the obvious choice). I'd of course like to keep costs down, and I happen to have some volunteer labor. The project is not time critical. Would it be worth it to pay to train them in doing shotcrete, or would it make more sense just to pay someone who already has experience to do so? Aka, is this something that takes weeks to get good at or years? And is there perhaps an intermediate step - say, could they perhaps help with making and securing forms while someone else more experienced does the application?

Also, and this is just out of curiosity, how sensitive is shotcrete to its aggregate? Because the land has sources of volcanic sand and pea gravel (some of the landowners in the area even have set up quarries), so it'd be great if that could save on materials, but I don't know if they're appropriate. Is there a way to "certify" whether a locally sourced aggregate is appropriate?

Thanks!

My new boyfriend has sort of a fascination with electricity (was training to become an electrician) and became the first person to point something out to me: my waterbed heater is shorting. He noticed a weak spark when touching me when he was on the ground and I was in the bed, which with further testing, he determined was repeatable and went away when the bed was unplugged. He made a convincing enough case that it wasn't just static that I went and fetched my multimeter and measured 30ma between me on the bed and him on the ground when we held the probes in our mouths for maximum conductivity.

Okay, so clearly I need a new waterbed heater - that's a given. The thing (which is 8 months old) doesn't even use a grounded plug. :Þ As much of a massive pain as it is to switch waterbed heaters, clearly this should be done. That said, how dangerous do you with electrical backgrounds think things are in the meantime? As far as I know, it's been like this since day 1. It will probably take me 20+ days to get a new one up here in Iceland. A waterbed is effectively nonfunctional as a sleeping surface without a heater, it gets too cold and becomes a heat sink for your body. Aka, I'd be sleeping on the couch or an air mattress potentially for over a month. How risky do you think it is to continue until I can replace him?

Some additional details. As mentioned, the heater plug is ungrounded. It's 120V American-style. It's plugged into an American power strip which is in turn plugged into a 750W 230-120V transformer (waay more current capability than necessary). All of the connections are grounded except for that final leg, the heater itself. The transformer has a fuse and the home has circuit breakers and is all ground-fault interrupted. In fact, the breakers often throw a bit *too* easily - can't use my electric kettle because the initial surge is too much for it and I lose power to the whole place.

I'm curious as to what those with medical backgrounds think of this.

Subject is a 42-year old male, 187cm/6'2", dropped from perhaps 80kg/175lbs to 65kg/145lbs over the previous three months. Subject complains of a persistent, worsening, "racking" unilateral cough. Subject's voice is weak. Subject reports unspecified progressive vision impairment. Subject appears sickly and pale. This could be related to a lack of sun exposure in the prior three months, although the subject daily uses UV lamps to compensate. Subject exercises daily with a professional trainer. Subject has been quite sexually active in the previous several years.

The subject is currently living in a small room in the Ecuadorian embassy adjacent to the Harrod's in Knightbridge, where he is on the run from attempts to hand him over to Sweden where he faces charges pertaining to sexual crimes, which he alleges is part of a conspiracy to send him to America to stand in a secret trial for leaking damaging information about the US government.

Subject is, of course, Julian Assange.

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_10_23/Ecuado%E2%80%A6

Ecuador is trying to get permission to take him to get treated at a proper hospital, but has said that if he worsens and he can't get a pledge not to arrest him after treatment, they'll set up a surgical theatre in the embassy.

The embassy is frequently described as "cramped" already, having been quite full before and since lost a room to Assange and having had to hire additional staff to deal with the additional interest and complications of his stay. Items going into the embassy would probably face little scrutiny but any large objects leaving the embassy would probably be inspected. There is no delivery ramp. Medical personnel should be unhindered.

1) What do you think might be the health problems?

2) Is it realistic to set up an operating theatre there, and how do you think it would affect the outcome versus a proper hospital stay?

3) How long would it take to set up, and at what cost?

Just curious. :)

My spouse and I (same-sex )are getting divorce. The divorce is not yet finalized, but the assets are largely split up. The home is in my name. We have our own bank accounts. I just signed over our investment account. The cars are signed over and re-registered under our individual names. And most of the property is divvied up. I'm in the house, which I own. My ex is in an apartment, which she rents. Most of her property is there or in her storage shed.

Now, for the issue at hand.

My ex is taking forever to remove her remaining property, with all kinds of ever-shifting excuses (in fact, right now, it's "I won't move anything at all until the piano gets moved later this week"). She has no shortage of storage space, thanks to the storage shed. She insists, however, on retaining access to the house -- not just a "I need to come over, when is a good time?" access, but a garage door opener and key. She tends to come over often and hang out, using the net for long periods of time, and getting little done.

She has long been abusive to me -- screaming, hitting, and throwing things, always under the "why do you make me hit you?" line of argument. I've tolerated this for over a decade, but a houseguest I have is not used to it. Normally my ex would direct this all at me, but last night, she directed it at our houseguest (for questioning why she couldn't load up her car with stuff while she was here). This freaked our houseguest out, to the point where she later had a flashback to earlier trauma in her life.

I can't have my houseguest living in an environment that she feels is dangerous; it's just not acceptable. I'm more than willing to accomodate requests to get my spouse her stuff (and have even offered to deliver it to her if she'd only so much as enumerate it all), but not unfettered access to the house. Do I have a legal right to deny my ex-spouse the capability to come over unannounced, so long as I ensure that she gets all of her property?

Please post references to law or case histories if possible. The state is Iowa.

There's this Danish guy I kind of have a thing with, and he's headed back to Denmark on Saturday. I wanted to say something sweet to him in Danish before he leaves, but I don't know any Danish (in case it helps, I do know a moderate amount of Icelandic). Some quick searching suggests that the phrase is "Jeg vil savne dig", so first off:

1) Is that correct?

2) How do you pronounce it?

I found one song on Youtube that had that as its lyrics, but it was sung, unclearly, with guitars and stuff making it hard to discern.

I recently got a job in Iceland (software development), and I'll be flying to Reykjavík soon (12-19.nóv.) to sign and finalize the papers for the Útlendingastofnun and to familiarize myself with their systems. It occurred to me, I really don't know what style of dress is typical for a programmer (female) showing up to a new job for the first time in Iceland. I know "on the street" fashion and all, but I have little experience with the Icelandic business world. Any tips?

I and another woman are going to Iceland this July for two weeks, and I had a couple questions, if you don't mind. :)

1) What's the best way to see Reykjavik (we'll only have 1-2 days to spend there)? Aka, is it by foot (can one get a good feel for the city in the range of a day's walk, with occasional stops to see the sights), or by bus (going between a couple areas of town and walking around between bus stops), or by car (is parking good, or would we spend most of our time looking for places to park?), etc? We can rent a car for $50/d and don't mind paying it if it'd give us a better feel for the city. But we're also in good shape and well-prepared for walking.

2) Due to how our plane tickets worked out, we've got a "flex day" that we don't have anything allocated for. If it were up to you, how would you spend it over there? Aka, hanging out in Reykjavik, another day hiking/camping in Landmannalaugar, on the beaches of Vík, in Borgarfjörður Eystri during Bræðslan, just leaving it slack and seeing what happens, etc? Here's our planned route:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&dirfl...

Basically everywhere but the far interior and a couple peninsulas.

3) I've been learning Icelandic, although I'm still very much a beginner, and expect to still be at "beginner" level by the time I get there. When I travel, I generally learn the local language even where most people also speak English (as a sign of respect, to be able to read signs, to be able to talk with those rarer individuals who don't speak English or don't speak it well, etc). In Japan (same sort of situation as Iceland, with English spoken pretty widely), people genuinely seemed to appreciate my (admittedly awkward) attempts to use their language. But Iceland is a very different culture than Japan. Do you think people there would generally appreciate it, or would they just be annoyed by my mistakes? For example, alveolar trills -- I can do a pretty good R-roll when it's preceded by a plosive (such as the "dr" in "draumur"), but not at all when it's preceded by a soft vowel (such as "er"). And I'm sure I'll get the occasional conjugation/declension/gender wrong, and the probability of failing to understand at least something they say rises toward 100% as duration of the conversation increases. In Japan I once accidentally implied that a friend worked for the mafia, and my friend once accidentally called our hosts "those damned people" (aitsu) when he meant to say "they" -- but those incidents were more amusing than anything else ;)

Just some questions as we continue our planning. :) Thanks!

I've just recently started learning Icelandic, in advance of a trip to Iceland this summer :). I have a couple questions I haven't been able to find the answer to.

1) Does Icelandic have an equivalent of the Canadian "eh?" or the Japanese "ne?" You know, something like "þu ert frá ameriku, (eh?)"

2) How would I say something like, "I have trouble rolling my Rs"? I can't find the words for "rolling Rs" anywhere, and well... I do ;) I'm trying, though!!

Thanks for any help you can provide. Apart from the pronunciation problems (mainly the Rs), I'm really enjoying the language. It has a very medieval feel to it.

So -- what do you think of Y!A people threatening to out you in real life?

In reference to me telling people that therapy is the best option, but if they have no other alternative (such as people in third world countries, those with unsupportive families, and so forth), about where to get blockers to delay puberty (by linking to mailing lists and notes from the major TS support sites, like Andrea James' TS Roadmap):

---

From: ((PJ)) <theiremail@theirdomain>

Reply-to: theiremail@theirdomain

To: ((Anonymouse)) <myemail@mydomain>

Subject: Re: And THIS is why I help people get blockers....

Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2010 16:08:40 -0800 (PST) (11/07/2010 06:08:40 PM)

here's the deal. if i see one more post of you talking about hormones on y/a to children....everybody in ((YourCity)), ((CityYouWentToCollege)), ((SomeOtherCity)) and even ((Relative)) in ((SomeOtherCity)) are going to start hearing about the man in a dress pushing drugs to children. that means your close associates there at work and at the university, as well as the ((State)) st police. stop it right now...this crusade can't be worth it.....leave the children alone!!!

that's all. pj

---

There is, of course, no legal case for linking people to information, nor is even the importation of them illegal if kept under a 90 day supply and for personal use. The major TS support sites have sections that provide this information already (tsroadmap.com, annelawrence.com, etc). And I am proud of providing this information to people who have no other options. But I'm also stealth, and here we have someone who knows I am stealth and is threatening to out me in real life because they disagree with me on Y!A (instead of just stating their disagreement).

(The info they have about me is because I sent a friendly email early on introducing myself... not knowing that this person is the vengeful type. Stupid, I know)

Regardless of your opinion on the merits of DIY, what do you all think about outing people in their real life over online disagreements?

Erica recently decided to take our private debate public, and to prevent me from providing information counter to her erroneous statements by blocking me from answering or even viewing what she wrote.

So I have several questions for all of you as a counter:

1) Given that 34% have no medical followup and 58% have acquired hormones from friends or the street:

http://transhealth.transadvocacy.org/Needs_Assessm...

And given that 1:1300 people in the US will ultimately have SRS, let alone be transsexual (a notably higher number) (Conway and Olyslager, 2007): Where are the giant piles of bodies from this action which will, and I quote, emphasis in original, "KILL YOU"? Where is a single news report or medical study of a single one?

2) Given that *three different doctors* I've had haven't saw fit to do a single blood test on me (really dangerous drugs there...), and given that they just read the information on the drugs off their computer screen -- compared to the people on the TS DIY list who cite peer-reviewed papers and debate over every facet of health consequences of different forms of administration -- what benefit, exactly, are these doctors providing?

3) Given that even oral estrogens have almost no risk factors associated with HRT in nonsmokers under 40 with no liver problems, and there is no difference in morbidity between transsexuals on hormones and those not:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved...

And that transdermal and injectable estrogens bypass the oral first-pass metabolism, making their existence to your body essentially the same as any other woman's... where, exactly, is this great danger supposedly coming from?

4) How is ordering from a legal, registered pharmacy in a first-world nation supposedly risky?

5) Given the astoundingly highrate of attempted suicide for untreated trans people at 41% (general population = 1.6%), how is pursuing such obscenely minimal risk factors worth the psychological risk of continued hormonal damage to said trans people's bodies when seeing a therapist is not an option?

Like Erica, I'm wondering what other people's opinions are.