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BurdensomeCount

Thou Shalt Read BC's Writings!

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joined 2022 September 05 16:37:04 UTC

The neighborhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of what was known to the writers of headlines and "The Kensington Horror," or "The Stabbing Woman," or "The Woman in Black." During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a "bloofer lady." It has always been late in the evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the children have not been found until early in the following morning. It is generally supposed in the neighborhood that, as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a "bloofer lady" had asked him to come for a walk, the others had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served. This is the more natural as the favorite game of the little ones at present is luring each other away by wiles. A correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the"bloofer lady" is supremely funny. Some of our caricaturists might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the reality and the picture. It is only in accordance with general principles of human nature that the "bloofer lady" should be the popular role at these al fresco performances.


				
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BurdensomeCount


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Thou Shalt Read BC's Writings!

				
				
				

				

					6 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 16:37:04 UTC
				


				
					

					
The neighborhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of what was known to the writers of headlines and "The Kensington Horror," or "The Stabbing Woman," or "The Woman in Black." During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a "bloofer lady." It has always been late in the evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the children have not been found until early in the following morning. It is generally supposed in the neighborhood that, as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a "bloofer lady" had asked him to come for a walk, the others had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served. This is the more natural as the favorite game of the little ones at present is luring each other away by wiles. A correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the"bloofer lady" is supremely funny. Some of our caricaturists might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the reality and the picture. It is only in accordance with general principles of human nature that the "bloofer lady" should be the popular role at these al fresco performances.



				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
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				Friday Fun Thread for July 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I object to this characterisation of myself.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for July 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As someone who has just finished Inifnite Jest (and so have earned the right to be insufferable for the next few weeks) all I will say is that AI definitely helped me understand what was really going on throughout different sections of the book and all the links between things and throwaway comments that were made hundreds of pages earlier. I think I'd have needed at least 3 readings of the book to get as much out of it as I did with one reading plus 5.6 Sol sitting next to me to bounce my questions and observations off of. Definitely added to the reading experience.


If the market is genuinely preferring AI written or assisted literary/artistic works over the human made counterparts then it's the Authors/Artists who need to adapt and change. Yes there will always be a niche for pure Human stuff, just like how there's a niche for DFW type stuff (most people would not consider 1100 pages of walls of text that don't really go anywhere including 100 pages of endnotes, some of which have their own endnotes to count as "good writing"); but it will be a niche, and the anti AI people need to make peace with that, just like how the "don't use AI for coding" people have had to make peace with the fact that pretty much all code now ends up written with AI.


And yes, AI will not be writing anything on the level of art as Infinite Jest for a long while, human writers/artists should stop serving low grade human produced slop and switch towards attempting grander works or fail in the process. If you're not mediocre, you're safe from AI for a while yet.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Now Balaji is asking to meet with the PM of Malaysia as essentially equals




Man I can't believe how stupid these tech bro "leaders" are. Pretty much all the charter city efforts etc. have all failed because the idiotic leaders of the efforts think that because they bring in the money that makes them an equal to the actual sovreign state whose land they are on and demand they should be treated with the same level of respect and deference in the country as senior figures in its government.


Naturally this pisses off not only the senior government figures but also the ordinary population who are naturally already suspicious of the project because it's usually targetted at higher income levels than the median in the country and so you've given the leaders, who are pissed off at you for insubordination an easy way to both get rid of you as well as get some popularity points with the comman man by kiboshing your project. And so yet another effort to do something which in all respects should be massive net positive utility for humanity gets shut down because tech bro leaders who've been fellated one too many times by the US government at home can't shut up.


The more and more time goes by and I think about it, the more and more convinced I am that China did the right thing with Jack Ma those few years ago vis a vis putting people in their rightful place.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
VARgentina have done enough to fill a mid sized book for why they and their team should be disliked and shunned by all right thinking people.


A good starting point is to take a look at Maradonna's cheating "hand of God" goal where he deliberately lied to the referee about what had happened; this is just not cricket.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Apropos of England vs Argentina, I absolutely called it: https://www.themotte.org/post/3822/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/458055?context=8#context


Wouldn't be England if they didn't first give us hope only to lose in the worst possible way and to the worst possible team to lose to.