GraniteM @ GraniteM @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

"I like my women either really fat or really skinny! Like, unhealthily skinny!"

There are people who, disturbed by "big government" today and its tendency to curb the advantages they might gain if their competitiveness were allowed free flow, demand "less govern- ment." Alas, there is no such thing as less government, merely changes in government. If the libertarians had their way, the distant bureaucracy would vanish and the local bully would be in charge. Personally, I prefer the distant bureaucracy, which may not find me, over the local bully, who certainly will. And all historical precedent shows a change to localism to be for the worse.

—Isaac Asimov, Nice Guys Finish First, collected in The Sun Shines Bright, 1981

Conan the Barbarian (1982) has no right to be as good as it is. On paper, it's a dumb sword and sorcery flick with a body builder who could barely speak English in the lead. But everyone involved does an incredible job, from the acting to the directing, to the score. It's a crime that Destroyer trashed up the formula, and we never got Conan the King.

I usually read sci-fi / fantasy, but I've come to recognize that certain authors are dense, and Tolkien is one of them. Trying to read too much of Tolkien at once is like trying to eat too much rich food; you've got to take a break from time to time. All the annotations in the above book make the text even more dense, but it's still interesting stuff, like the mythological origins of Gandalf, or the tiny changes Tolkien made from early editions of the book. So I want to read this, it's not like I'm forcing myself to read some godawful textbook, but I think when I'm reading it at night, my brain gets to a point where it just goes "Ah fuck it," and I start to nod off.

Also pretty good for this: Isaac Asimov, or Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August.

This right here

was my drug-free go to sleep solution for a few months. Just barely interesting enough to want to read it, but also tedious enough that I'd get maybe a page or two in before I'd be nodding off.

The spacing on the lights up top is super weird. AI seems to have a real problem recreating consistent repeated patterns.

Here's the video.

It's been a while since I watched it, so judge for yourself.

And he did special effects for Alice Cooper!

The income estimates are interesting.

We're apparently quite bad at estimating all income levels except who earns $100,000-$500,000 / year.

I recall a Richard Feynman video where the interviewer asks him to explain how magnets work.

His answer amounts to "I can't explain that to you because if I gave you an accurate answer it would be too technical for it to make sense to you, and if I simplified it to the extent that you could understand, it would no longer be a meaningful answer."

Funny thing! Here's a quote from the same book:

Of what use, then, are the American Communists?

They serve one function extremely useful to you and to the country, so useful that, if there were no Communists, we would almost be forced to create some. They are a reliable litmus paper for detecting real sources of danger to the Republic.

Communism is so repugnant to almost all Americans, when they are getting along even tolerably well, that one may predict with certainty that any social field or group in which the Communists make real strides in gaining members or acceptance of their doctrines, any such spot is in such bad shape from real and not imaginary social ills that the rest of us should take emergency, drastic action to investigate and correct the trouble.

Unfortunately we are more prone to ignore the sick spot thus disclosed and content ourselves with calling out more cops.

If you believe that laws forbidding gambling, sale of liquor, sale of contraceptives, requiring definite closing hours, enforcing the Sabbath, or any such, are necessary to the welfare of your community, that is your right and I do not ask you to surrender your beliefs or give up your efforts to put over such laws. But remember that such laws are, at most, a preliminary step in doing away with the evils they indict. Moral evils can never be solved by anything as easy as passing laws alone. If you aid in passing such laws without bothering to follow through by digging in to the involved questions of sociology, economics, and psychology which underlie the causes of the evils you are gunning for, you will not only fail to correct the evils you sought to prohibit but will create a dozen new evils as well.

—Robert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government

Anyone who notices something is slightly off about them, like frames where he has extra fingers or nonsense text on the papers on his desk is called a conspiracy theorist, and to shut up and celebrate the Dear Leader's 170th birthday.

The year is 2117. Either...

A: AI still can't generate video without a bunch of fucky artifacts.

B: The Trump administration is still using janky AI from the 2020s, even though better options exist.

Both sound plausible.

I remember 20 years ago you had to wait until midnight.

All kids out of the pool! Kick back! Kick back! One two three four!

Well somebody should tell Zach Braff that.