celluloid_dream
No bio...
User ID: 758
celluloid_dream
3mo ago
Something has always felt off about that.
I'll grant it's true now. I don't know that it always was. There was a time where he seemed like the most popular Conservative leader in living memory. He was genuinely getting people out to rallies, and not even during election season. His campaign doubled party membership in under a year.
And even then, the media was running the story "Pierre is unlikeable and unpopular". I was like "are we watching the same movie?". Doubted it was true at the time. Suspected they memed it into existence, but it stuck.
He's been saying (with energy!) the things young people have been grumbling about for years, especially re: housing, economy, etc. A coworker was ranting about politics to me basically complaining about the fact that she'll never buy a home, and practically repeating lines from Pierre's youtube playbook. I asked her what she thought of Poilievre. "don't like him". "oh? why?". "dunno. just don't"
I think it's because he's a nerd. The general public hates a nerd. Even though he ditched the glasses, hit the gym, and changed his messaging to 3-word populism, people can tell he's still a nerd. He has debate club energy, and the fact that he is right and "wins" the debate doesn't help him.
celluloid_dream
3mo ago
The star system is broken, and nothing can fix it.
For one thing, no one can agree what the scale even means in the first place. Reviewers will write "Wonderful, quaint little burger truck by the beach. Best I've ever had. 2/5 stars", because they think there's some objective restaurant ranking ranging from broken vending machine to Michelin, and a particularly good burger truck sits at ~2/5 on that scale, so it gets a glowing review and 2 stars. I think this derives from hotel ratings, where there was a defined meaning for what each star meant.
Do restaurants work like hotels? no idea. Personally, I'm inclined to rate things by what they're trying to do, so a perfect food truck gets 5 stars, and a slightly flawed upscale place gets 4. But then, do prices matter? If the burger truck has great food, but overpriced, to they get docked stars? Is the rating scale linear or logarithmic?
And then there's the 5 star/1 star problem. Everyone knows the average rating is important, so they rate to affect the average. If you like the place, you want to give them as much of an advantage on the algorithm as you can, whether they bribed you for that rating or not. You are being nice by leaving a 5 star review. Meanwhile, haters give a mean-spirited 1 star no matter what the actual quality because it's going to hurt the place more that way.
celluloid_dream
3mo ago
Michael Falk, Autistic Reporter was a good bit.
celluloid_dream
3mo ago
confusing and unsettling. All your ships are miles away from each other, and you don't see the enemy basically at all, unless you are a bomber pilot.
Even for them. I remember playing a flight sim in the Pacific Theater back in the day (CFS2, I think?) and being struck by how little you'd be sure of if you didn't have the minimap and unit text helping you out. Here's a representative video.
The enemy is just a smattering of specks on the horizon. At that distance, you probably can't even make out what they are. Could be friendlies. Could be unprotected bombers. Could be a fighter patrol. You'd be figuring that out in real time with a lot of radio back and forth. Hence Spotter Cards to train recognition.
And once the action kicks off, it'd just get even more chaotic.
celluloid_dream
5mo ago
strange to see it framed as 'liminal horror' because i have always felt weirdly comforted by such spaces.
could be downstream of mild misanthropy, or perhaps a childhood+adolescence of being allowed to explore freely among such spaces: hallways, tunnels, theatre backrooms, rooftops, etc. the video game 'myst' also comes to mind.
celluloid_dream
6mo ago
I'm Starting To Worry About This Black Box Of Doom by Jason Pargin, after it got mentioned on ACX. This was just a delightfully fun book. I read the entire thing in one go on a flight. Would that every novel could strike the same balance of lighthearted adventure and philosophical dialogue. It gets pretty carried away by the end, but still good.
HMS Surprise by Patrick O'Brian (Aubrey-Maturin #3). I was all set to deride this as merely being a bunch of things that happen in sequence, but on reflection, there is a real tragic arc through it (for one character, at least), and a running theme of futility.
Not a problem. It's just mildly annoying sometimes.
The difference between topics of material fact and those of a spiritual bent is that the former are comprehensible to anyone, and the latter only make sense if you have already bought in to a specific belief system. You can discuss geopolitics or tech without anyone having to accept contested metaphysics. The annoyance comes from moving the discussion to a place where not everyone can play.
The term "hugbox" is probably not fair. It's more like the accumulated weight of all the Christian-posting starts to make the place feel kind of Christian by default.
celluloid_dream
7mo ago
try to assert the tenets of Christianity as literally true in a debate
It's not so much that people do this (although it does happen). More often they proceed with a discussion as if the tenets of Christianity are literally true, and at that point, it would be rude to question them, because they're trying to talk about kenosis or apokatastasis or whatever and not have an edgy 2000s atheism debate.
celluloid_dream
7mo ago
Are you seriously asking? Yes, it does come off as a bit of a Christian hugbox at times.
Many posters here, yourself included (yourself especially?), take ample opportunity to mention that they are Christian, and often use the forum to discuss Christian topics and Christian theology as if it would be uncontroversial.
It's not so frequent that I can quickly dig up an example, but I've noticed it and been annoyed by it before. It's innocent enough - one person sees the other mention their faith, and takes that as license to proceed in a discussion where the baseline axioms of Christianity are assumed. I hope you can appreciate that an atheist watching a thread devolve into bible study would be miffed.
celluloid_dream
7mo ago
As a Canadian former customer service worker who has said that exact line, here's what's going on:
When you work one of those jobs, the set of polite greetings and goodbyes all reach semantic satiation. You've said "Have a nice day" a thousand times across a hundred shifts. The words are no longer communication. They're a button you press to process a customer, like the code to unlock the PoS terminal, or the lever to open the cash register. eye contact, fake smile, take card, tap card, print receipt, pass receipt, pass bags, eye contact, fake smile, "haffaaniceeddaaaaay", greet next customer. eye contact. fake smile..
and every so often, something shakes you out of this dissociative trance and you realize your limbs are working on autopilot like they're connected directly to the gears of capitalism, and you've been saying "haffaanicedaaaay" the last 63 transactions (more? you can't remember). With a jolt of existential horror, you scramble to just wrest control back and say something, anything else. "Have a" (oh no. you can already feel your tongue slipping back into the well worn groove) "..good rest of your day!". Sure, a little awkwardly phrased, but you hope they appreciate the fact that you composed it just for them. You give them a real smile, real eye contact. Did you do it right? Did you do a good customer service?
You probably did. Pat yourself on the back. That was a nice. Maybe you'll say it to the next customer..
celluloid_dream
7mo ago
I think if you consider the Canadian politics angle, some pieces fall into place:
- Doug Ford has a shot at future CPC leadership, and could be a future PM candidate against Carney
- Assume this reaction from Trump was expected. This hurts Carney's ability to make a productive trade deal with the US, weakens his minority government
- Who is going to see this ad? 1. a lot of baseball watching Americans. This ad really does correctly portray Reagan's views on free trade. The people know it. This hurts Trump. Weakens Canada short term, possibly strengthens Canada medium-long term if Democrats do well in the next elections. But also 2. a lot of baseball watching Canadians will see it. Canadians love to bandwagon the Blue Jays whenever they do well. It stokes a lot of patriotic pride. They also love to hate Donald Trump. This associates Conservative values (Reagan) with getting a savage dig in on Trump with Canadian sportsball pride competing at the highest level in America's game.
I'm not saying this is a perfect explanation. I have doubts about whether Ford or whoever was thinking about this stuff, but it would make a certain kind of sense.
celluloid_dream
8mo ago
You could buy an astroturfing campaign.
I sometimes wonder why this isn't more common. It should be very cost-effective, given how few people participate in online discourse, social-desirability bias, and crowd behavior dynamics mean you only need ~5% of that small minority to start forming consensus around something.
You could, with a small team and a stock of authentic-looking sockpuppet accounts, own the reaction comments around some political podcast, the chat for popular streamers, the topics in political subreddits, etc. For a pittance in paid subscriptions to influential writers, you could maybe even turn the direction of their output - audience capture is a thing.
celluloid_dream
8mo ago
if I'm worried about being attacked by anything, it's wasps. Evil bastards. Can't see the nest until it's too late half the time, and even if someone else steps on it, they can just randomly decide it's your fault anyway
celluloid_dream
8mo ago
Claude Sonnet 4.5 is out!
What are your personal benchmarks to put a new LLM to feel out its personality and capabilities? I have a few:
- Coding tasks I've requested in the past. Boring, but necessary
- Song lyric interpretation: to see how much it "gets". Example "Sacrifice Theory" by AFI. I like this one because there are two levels, and there has been clear improvement over the years how many hints the models need before they realize the double meaning (vampiric ritual, but also performance at a live show)
- Just for fun: "If a Claude be washed away by the sea, is Europe the less?"
celluloid_dream
8mo ago
On typical days, (15-30km, 1000-2500m elevation gain), no I don't bring any of that. I used to carry a medium fixed-blade survival knife, but even that has been replaced with a small folding climbing blade instead.
If I'm alone and going to be passing through prime bear habitat, I'll grudgingly bring a can of mace, but if I can justify leaving it behind for any reason, I will. If faced with a rabid squirrel or deer or whatever, I'd probably grab the nearest stick or rock and improvise. What's a knife going to do in that situation? I'd be more likely to cut myself than deter the thing. Honestly, I think the energy advantage from carrying a lighter load beats having a dedicated weapon.
As far as two-legged predators, I trust anyone out that far into the wild to either be friendly, or else dangerous enough that I'd be fucked regardless.
As I understand it, the purpose of ICE is to make a big theatrical show of removing a few unfortunate illegals pour encourager les autres, and, even if that doesn't actually do anything on a large scale, at least make the administration look like they're taking a hard stance.
With that in mind, what better target than this guy? To others overstaying their visas: if they can get him, they could get you too. To the voting base: "Look, this guy thought he could get away with blatantly flouting the rules for two decades, and in case you thought he was an upstanding citizen, pillar of the community, Olympian, etc. He had weapons charges and was fleeing the law"
celluloid_dream
9mo ago
Yeah. I feel bad for the video creators who, probably, are making good videos, but are stuck in this equilibrium where they have to use a stupid clickbait thumbnail or else no one will watch them.
celluloid_dream
9mo ago
Clickbait thumbnails fill me with utter revulsion.
You know the ones. Giant faux-surprised face projected deep into your simian hindbrain, grabbing your eyeballs and therefore your attention without your consent. You might consciously not give any fucks what this annoying soyjak is so startled by, but it does not matter. You will look anyway because there is a face, and faces are important, says millions of years of evolution. What's he looking at? Is something happening? Predator? Mate? Monkey get banana? And the text.. you can't not read the text. It's bold and bright yellow, and all caps, and there's a giantfuckingarrow pointing to it. And an emoji (another face) You are pwned. You cannot unsee it. You can only feel rage and vow not to click on it.
celluloid_dream
9mo ago
I think it's like petting a cat or dog behind the ears. There's a correct cadence/pressure/technique for every animal, and if you hit the sweet spot, they'll slip into a blissful trance and love you forever. Some pets are easy to please. They're happy with any scritch behind the ears. Others are distrustful or tricky, and they don't like it except in very specific circumstances.
Same with humans and ASMR. Some people can fall into ASMR easily and have lots of triggers that work, maybe the whole gamut of YouTube vids. Others maybe only click with very specific voices, or can only do it when they're fully relaxed, or maybe even not at all. Personally, I find it hard to trigger with audio or video alone, but adding a little touch reliably opens that pathway.
celluloid_dream
9mo ago
I like that anecdote, because if she opens with 1. Pascal (!?) and you counter with 1. ...Python (??) you have already lost. She is satisfied because at this point, checkmate is a foregone conclusion. Maybe the growling should have tipped you off that you were dealing with a creature of legend. Some animal-spirit of the old internet. I wonder, if her boyfriend hadn't shown up, just how far into the dark woods you'd have followed..
celluloid_dream
9mo ago
agree that there's some "in-the-water" progressivism in LiS, but it all felt pretty natural to me. It is indeed hard to point to specific examples without spoiling things, but there were also some obvious fake-outs where you think a character is supposed to be a tool to hammer home a message, and they're not, or are actually the opposite. I would also say "the good ending" feels thematically conservative to me (almost Christian?), but can't really say more without spoiling it.
I had to quit LiS 2 for the same reason. I can handle a character being preachy just fine, but when the game itself is preaching to me without any room for nuance, that's too much.
celluloid_dream
9mo ago
Life Is Strange is a great game, but not an especially progressive one. Maybe a few plot details would count. I'd say it's more nostalgia / coming of age / loss of innocence than anything.
I'd instead offer Tell Me Why, by the same developer. Tell Me Why is a worse game (can't honestly recommend it) - much more of a walking simulator - but it's impressive just how ideological it manages to be without ruining the whole thing. You play as twins, one of which is a trans-man with a chip on his shoulder, who gets dialogue options to be petulant and preachy toward various conservative residents of small town Alaska, but this doesn't go so great for him, and he comes off looking like an asshole some of the time. Its main achievement is that the progressive messaging is such a load-bearing part of the plot, and the thing still holds together.
celluloid_dream
9mo ago
- We know guy filming thinks he is innocent (or else why share the video?)
- We know girl brandishing blades has chosen her weapons poorly. (it's a chopping knife, not a slicing/stabbing knife. she probably wouldn't do much damage with that hatchet before someone wrested it away from her)
- They're also quite large, and would be awkward to carry around even stuffed down her sweatpants. Neither girl seems to have a bag or backpack
- I think staged video is unlikely because of spontaneous behavior - girl decides to try and put the knife away, then pulls it out again. Leaves, comes back, etc.
I don't have a good guess at what is going on, but I suspect it was some mundane disagreement that escalated. Possible the girl ran to a flat and came back with the two biggest weapons she could find on short notice.
celluloid_dream
10mo ago
Ogopogo is your bog-standard lake monster with a cool name. I'd have assumed it was invented to sell cute snake plushies at souvenir shops, if not for its apparent long history:
According to Ben Radford, the Ogopogo is "more closely tied to native myths than is any other lake monster." The Secwepemc and Syilx natives regarded the Ogopogo, which they called the Naitaka, as "an evil supernatural entity with great power and ill intent."[7] The word "n'ha-a-itk" has various translations, such as "water-demon", "water god", or "sacred creature of the water".[8] In native lore, Naitaka demanded a live sacrifice for safe crossing of the lake. For hundreds of years, First Nations would sacrifice small animals before entering the water. Oral traditions often described visiting chief Timbasket, who rejected the required sacrifice, denying the existence of the demon. Upon entering the lake on a canoe with his family, Naitaka "whipped up the surface of the lake with his long tail" and the canoe and its occupants were sucked to the bottom of the lake. The Naitaka was often described as using its tail to create fierce storms to drown victims. In 1855, settler John MacDougal claimed that his horses were sucked down into the water, and nearly his canoe before he cut the line.
Yeah. I had a similar evaluation. Expected Carney to be a more competent leader, which counts for a lot, though I still could not vote Liberal that election. After breaking the country so badly with the immigration & housing mess across a decade, just couldn't endorse another term for their government.
I will say that Poilievre used to do more messaging about economics, inflation, housing, etc. trying to show his work. At a certain point, he stopped doing that and pivoted to more attack ads and three word slogans. Worse in my opinion, but it probably polled better.
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