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FiveHourMarathon

Wawa Nationalist

17 followers   follows 6 users  
joined 2022 September 04 22:02:26 UTC

And every gimmick hungry yob

Digging gold from rock n roll

Grabs the mic to tell us

he'll die before he's sold

But I believe in this

And it's been tested by research

He who fucks nuns

Will later join the church


				
User ID: 195


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
FiveHourMarathon


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Wawa Nationalist

				
				
				

				

					17 followers  

					follows 6 users  

					joined 2022 September 04 22:02:26 UTC
				


				
					

					
And every gimmick hungry yob


Digging gold from rock n roll


Grabs the mic to tell us


he'll die before he's sold


But I believe in this


And it's been tested by research


He who fucks nuns


Will later join the church



				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 195


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the AI bubble is uniquely confusing, because the real estate pros building them out are treating it like musical chairs and the companies commissioning them are treating it like the Rapture. Real estate pros figure it's a bubble, in the sense that eventually they will be overbuilt and stop building, so if I want to cash in on it I need to do it right now before the music stops I can't wait around. AI companies treat it like the Rapture, it doesn't matter if they overspend now because AGI is right around the corner and then money doesn't matter. They're unconcerned with the idea that the music will stop, they're concerned with controlling the playlist because whatever song is playing today will be on repeat forever. Combine the two and you're getting a toxic bubble.


It's also a problem in my town because of prior government interventions to subsidize the construction of new office buildings, creating a glut of new office space, which in turn makes building office space impractical. So you have sites that would be perfect for an office park being turned into data centers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is...not true. CNBC reports Crypto prices far more prominently than ESPN reports on the Pirates.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not anti-data-center as a general idea. But somehow every data center plan in my town is absolutely moronic.


My particular town has one main commercial corridor. On this corridor you have stores, movie theaters, banks, offices. People moving back and forth across it throughout the day. Now there used to be a major company headquartered there, they since moved to new offices down the road. Developers want to convert the old offices into data centers, a few million square feet.


My first thought upon looking at the plan was, you'd never do this in Sim City. You have one of your most prime pieces of commercial real estate in the region, and you want to turn it into a box that no one uses and nobody goes to. You want to give away that access, that site with easy walkability and simple drivability to literally everything in town, and turn it into a box that hums. You're going to take this prime real estate away from people.


It's just a stupid development choice. And I get that the market doesn't owe me Sim City type optimal decision making, but it's a weird thing. I'm not anti-data-center, but there's obvious good places and obvious bad places to put them, and so many of the choices made seem to be obvious bad places.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I’m…fairly sure that’s neither oedipal nor reverse-oedipal.




I'm, like, dead sure you're wrong. The Oedipal plotline is one in which the father is surpassed by his son, the psychological tension of "killing" the father metaphorically by defeating him is the source of the psychological drama of the plot. It does not literally require that the son fuck his mother (though this is a joke within the show we're talking about, that's kind of irrelevant actually).


The John Wick villains, and something like Succession, are examples. But a) they're recent examples, so would support my point that it's a weird modern Boomer affectation and a corruption of historic plots. But also it's distinguishable because, b) these are clearly examples of failed bad villainous fathers, whose failsons are the anchor around the neck of their legacies. Longshanks in Braveheart, the elder Roy in Succession, whatever his name was in John Wick, they're all evil. And part of their evil selfishness is that they raised shitty sons who will not be able to carry on their legacy, because they were too focused on things like conquering Scotland or the American news market. Having a failson ultimately undermines all your achievements as a man, rather than defeating your failson crowning those achievements.


What distinguishes the new "Old guy is just better than the young guy" plot in something like The Hawk or the Top Gun sequel is that it's presented as good that the old guy is better, that the old guy is still in touch with some cthonic way of being that makes him permanently superior, but that he can't pass on to his son.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The prosecuting attorneys, who wrote the damn motion and are more familiar with the facts of the case than we are, despite their clear incentives both personal and from above to prosecute, thought that the shoddy workmanship undermined their case to the point that it was unprovable. The prosecutors publicly embarrassed themselves rather than proceed with the case. Because there was no possible way they could prove a crime here. Do you think that they put themselves in this position for fun?




Based upon the initial reports provided by the Department of the Interior (“DOI”) and the USS. Park Police (“USPP”), the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia (“USAO-DC’) presented the grand jury with evidence that damage to the Reflecting Pool was caused by vandals, including the defendant in this case, David Hearn, However, it was not until after the return of the indictment, that the DOI provided additional documents to the USAO-DC indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings (“AIC”), and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026. It was not until after these documents were produced that USAO-DC first became aware of information showing that the damage was the result ofa botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented by DOI. Indeed, USAO-DC could only rely (on the information provided by DOI that the damage was entirely caused by vandals, including the defendant in this case, David Hearn, Because these recently-produced materials significantly undermine the evidentiary basis for the indictment initially supplied by the DOI and U.S. Park Police, the USAO-DC respectfully moves to dismiss the indictment without prejudice.




The motion consists of the prosecutors outlining at length why they think that the issues with the construction mean that the multiple eyewitness accounts are either incorrect or irrelevant to the indictment handed down. To defend the original indictment means asserting that one knows more than the prosecutors, or assuming that the prosecutors appointed by Trump, who were willing to work on the original indictment, have suddenly become part of a TDS conspiracy for...reasons.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Charges have been dropped, by the Trump administration, in the most publicly embarrassing way possible, and we still have people in the comments endeavoring to be more Catholic than the Pope saying that it was definitely vandalism.


The tide is going out and we're finding out who was skinny dipping.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The Romans usually drafted young men in their early twenties, rarely late teens, and sometimes late twenties or even thirties




The Roman legions typically assumed that the youngest recruits would suck, and were expected mainly to serve as skirmishers and slow down the enemy lines, before the prime age formations moved in and fought, and if that didn't work the thirty-something men nearing the end of their primes were the reliable cleanup hitters.


We see pretty similar age ranges in, say, NFL offensive linemen. Who have a pretty similar job description, really, though obviously a different selection process and physique.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ages are funny among the Homeric Greeks, it's implied that Telemachus is not yet at full manhood though the timeline suggests he has to be about 21, while Odysseus is implied to be in his prime though he must be somewhere in his mid-forties to early 50s at least.


To some extent I suspect that the rise of firearms and peasant armies has permanently altered the perception of ages to modern men. Heroic-era warfare required a combination of physical strength, experience, and skill that peaks in the 30s; not at 18, which is the peak of the combination of endurance, stupidity, and raw courage that is ideal for firearms. Ancients thought of 20 year olds as barely fit for military service, in much the same way that only rare 20 year olds are physically mature enough for combat sports or the NFL, and thought that 35-40 year olds were still plenty fit to fight. While today we place 20 year olds as the ideal military recruits, and 35 is just barely legal to enlist.


The Odyssey does play into this trope somewhat, I agree, but it's pretty heavily implied throughout the Telemachy in the first four books that Telemachus is coming into his own, and will someday be a hero equal to his father. This is addressed in ancient days in the lost Telegony, in which Odysseus is killed by his bastard child of Circe, who then marries Telemachus. ((As a personal aside, reading Madeleine Miller's Circe there were a bunch of details, like Circe marrying Telemachus, that I thought had to be modern flights of fancy but were actually part of the mythological corpus))


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't like engaging in generational whining but...what's with the trend of reverse-oedipal complexes in media these days? Mrs. FiveHour wanted me to watch The Hawk with her because she liked the first episode she watched. And it's fine for the most part, an inoffensive zany comedy with a solid cast of "Oh look it's Dr. Spaceman from 30 Rock?" in every role. But I'm confounded by the plot: at the opening of the pilot Ferrell is a kind of cross between Tin Cup and Jon Daly, a washed up drunken slob former pga star trying to find his way back to the tour, while his son is a tour pro on the rise. Within five or six episodes, dad has fought his way back to the tour (with a direct Tin Cup homage along the way), and son is frustrated that his dad is better than him and can't handle the competition.


And look I get it, Ferrell is the star people like and tune in for. But how did we get to the point where being just literally irrevocably better than your son was something we celebrated in media? Sure, you have some of the later John Wayne movies where the old timers were still tough, but taking McClintock as our example piece, it is implied and directly written into the script that he expects his heirs (his daughter and the college boy turned ranch-hand he wants her to marry) to grow into their greatness. It's a genuinely weird plot orientation, I have trouble thinking of past examples. Are there a lot of classic "Father is just literally better than his idiot Son at the same task they are both trying" plots that I am not thinking of?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've been on a big Martini kick for the last few months. I tend to pick my drink based on the books I'm reading or tv shows I'm watching, I'll read a book that features a drink and get a craving and get on a run of it. Hemingway puts me on an Absinthe kick, Frasier inevitably gets me to buy a bottle of sherry. I finally figured out a good cocktail shaker: a YETI tumbler I got at a Bachelor party, close the sliding top to shake, open to pour. I love olives in general, and a nice ice cold Martini gets me right when I get home after work at night.


In this day and age when I want something new, rather than mix up complicated drinks, I mostly let the local distilleries do the work for me. When I'm at the state store and I see a local jalepeno infused gin, now I'm mixing up jalapeno martinis for a bit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would prefer that we teach the diary for what it is: a horrifying document showing the awful crimes of war. I mean, actually I think the Diary of Anne Frank is outmoded as a teaching tool and that Holocaust education is a moral failure. But if you're trying to teach a unit on hope, Victor Frankl would be the choice. If you're trying to teach someone the idea that hope is a positive good, you should probably use a teaching tool that shows that hope can pay off.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And the narrator in this book is likeable in part because of her hope in dark situations, which is a positive example for the reader.




Hope which is completely misplaced. It's a negative example for the reader! "Even when things look dark, have hope, like Anne Frank!" "What happened to her?" A line in a comedy too stupid to be believed, yet here we are.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not sure what you're saying here at all.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Unrelated Anne Frank Complaint


I listen to my local college radio station constantly when in the car. It's one of the few places left in the world where I can genuinely discover new music, without searching in any way. But because it is a public station, they play PSA's constantly, and the worst are the Pass It On people. And the worst ad they've ever created started airing recently:


Anne Frank as role model




Her words weren't written under peaceful shade, but under fear for her life. "Everyone has inside, a piece of good news." For two agonizing years she worried about being caught by the Nazis. "The good news is, you don't know how great you can be." Though her story ended early, her words live on. "I don't think of all the misery, but the beauty that still remains." With her positive outlook, Anne Frank continues to fill us with hope. Hope. Pass It On. This message is a courtesy of The Foundation for a Better Life at Pass It On.com.




This is actually offensively bad. Anne Frank's story shouldn't fill us with hope! How exactly does the story of a young girl who was murdered by an industrial racism machine fill us with hope? That's not the message we're meant to get from that school assignment! The point of assigning The Diary of Anne Frank in school is to place us in a state of empathy with the victims of the Holocaust*, to make us understand that these were real humans just like us being herded into camps. Whatever hope she had was misplaced! Her life ended ignominiously and miserably! To turn her into an inspirational self-help guru is to lessen the impact of the crimes committed against her.


It's offensively preachy and bad.


*FWIW I think we all need to stop empathizing with the victims and start trying to empathize with the perpetrators, and realize that It Could Happen Here


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Exciting, anything particularly fun?




Several first printings of Hemingway, a first edition of Candace Bushnell's original pre-tv Sex and the City for Mrs. FiveHour, several James Baldwins, an 1831 leather set of Napoleon's memoirs, a French set of Hugo's works from the mid 1800s, a copy of the War Department's official history of "The World War" published in 1919, and another item so rare and strange that I have no idea how to describe it on the public web because I would irrevocably doxx myself if it were searchable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So even though Anthropic didn't have to destroy their books, at least they apparently haven't destroyed anything truly rare.




I'll note first that I am one of those hippy-dippy people with a sacred feeling about books. I don't throw them away, I don't destroy them. It took an effort of will to become a person who writes in books, and then only for very special reasons.


I recently purchased a huge number of rare, old, or first edition books at auction. I don't intend to physically read any of the copies, they have a totemic value to me. Owning a first printing of Hemingway is something I imagine has a kind of mystical field about it, like an item in a video game.


I have trouble believing that they destroyed anything truly valuable, and rare does not equal valuable. Within the auction were many books I'd never heard of, first edition first printing, but just some airport novel about people on Nantucket published in the 80s that hasn't much been preserved or cared about or read since then.


It's possible that Anthropic purchased one of those books that is "rare" in the sense of infrequently appearing, but not "rare" in the sense of valuable or desirable.


In a sense, a book like that, a dead novel that hasn't been read in decades, has been given new and eternal life, becoming a mote within the great consciousness. Couldn't a turn of phrase or a piece of advice from an 80s airport novel become, by whatever occult means within the system, revived and returned to the discourse?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Herodotus notably states that Ethiopia produces the most beautiful women in the world, and Herodotus is Right About Everything.


That said, I agree with you that this particular actress undermines the trope being played.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Philly sports fans how drunk are you right now?




It'll be cool if I can get tickets to a game this year and see Lebron play, but idk that even King James can beat the curse of Embiid.


It makes sense in that they are probably the best team he can join and still get a lion's share of the credit if they win.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


factory pickup with high-quality all-terrain tires will take you almost anywhere




A rwd chevy s10 and a brain will get you 99.9% of the places that 99.9% of the population ever goes.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, the number of people that live there and does that rounds down to zero. A tiny fraction of the population does that a tiny fraction of the time. And frankly, they don't need to anyway. Going hiking twice a year in no way justifies spending ten thousand dollars to ruin the ride of your daily driver pickup truck. That would be like if I walked around in my bjj gi at the office.


And anyway, from the video that appears to be a stock bronco, not a lifted pickup truck.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 24, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
While I disdain Starbucks, I frequent local espresso shops and order all kinds of girly drinks. It's tasty, it's fun, it's something I can't entirely recreate at home, it's a fun outing with Mrs. FiveHour or by myself with a laptop to sit for a few hours. I don't think I could go every day, but on the scale of indulgences, I find it perfectly fine.


But I can't understand:


-- Lifted pickup trucks. Nobody drives off-road. Nobody. It's not a real thing people do at the scale where you would need any kind of rig to do it beyond a Subaru Outback with good tires. But I can't go anywhere without seeing trucks that have been lifted to the point where they handle like hell, at a cost of thousands of dollars.


-- The vast majority of DoorDash traffic. I understand the value when one is three sheets to the wind, or ill, or whatever and getting food delivered becomes more valuable. I don't understand how it accounts for such a large share of orders that it's a huge element in the service economy. I'd think the average person would order delivery once a month or less, it appears to be much more than that.


-- Cruises. The whole set-up seems wildly unpleasant, particularly if I'm going to have spend my time on a boat cooped up with other people who wanted to go on a cruise.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think to some extent it does undermine the critique. The contrast asks the question: ok, cool, smart guy, you can critique the noble war made by noble warriors, the noble men obedient to and believing in a noble king, but can you come up with something better? You can critique, but can you build? Which approach is better if one can build an ending, and the other cannot?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ok I'm gonna need a longer comment on your answer to this question.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There will be no epic poems written down in this house,  young man!


We have written evidence of the criticisms of writing down stories and wisdom, as opposed to personal oral transmission.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Related: my opinion that GRRM's failure to end ASOIAF undermines his positioning the work as a critique of Tolkien. You can write the beginning of an interesting story that deals with "Aragorn's Tax Policy" and the grimdark of a fantasy setting...but you can't write the ending, because a satisfying ending to the work GRRM began is impossible, it's ultimately sterile in that way.