celluloid_dream
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User ID: 758
Problem? What problem? From my perspective, the shift in screenwriting priorities is actually nice. There are so many varieties of non-romantic relationships that go underexplored on screen because the writers have to make space for an obligatory romance arc. Maybe the pendulum has swung too far of late, but human desires being what they are, I'm sure it'll swing back.
Also, counterexample: Have you seen the GTA 6 trailer from a few weeks ago? My first thought was: after hundreds of thousands of words spilled about the fertility crisis, dating troubles, incels, etc, the thing that is actually going to move the cultural needle is a video game franchise modelling a healthy adult relationship between its protagonists.
Against this, I'll dig up my favourite quote from The Fountainhead:
- It’s the Parthenon! - said the Dean.
- Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon! The ruler struck the glass over the picture.
- Look,- said Roark. - The famous flutings on the famous columns – what are they there for? To hide the joints in wood – when columns were made of wood, only these aren’t, they’re marble. The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams, the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks. Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Why?”
Maybe those were nice houses for their time (though on many, I see exactly the sort of cargo-cult ornamentation Rand's character complains about). Today, when I hear people clamour for beauty in architecture, they seem to want those old designs back! They have no positive vision of the future. Concrete boxes might be uninspired, but I'm not sure they're that much worse than making a modern copy of a Victorian copy of a Renaissance copy of ancient woodworking.
celluloid_dream
1yr ago
Sure, but why is the thing good?
In its original form, it was good because it served a functional purpose. Thereafter, each copy was only good because of nostalgia or familiarity, and I think it settles for being merely good, when it could innovate using more recent techniques, new materials, creativity and perhaps be better. At least, that's the ethos I got from the book (and, I'm told, it's kinda-sorta what the Modernists were going for).
celluloid_dream
3mo ago
I can't speak for Toronto. Maybe the demands of harsh winters, or the lack of natural beauty limit what can be done with modern styles which often draw much of their appeal from space and the surrounding environment, so architects instead try pure weirdness and that puts people off.
I can say, though, in Vancouver, modernism works very well.
- a house
- Museum of Anthropology at UBC
- The Law Courts building and surrounding Robson Square
Meanwhile, I find the nearby Vancouver Art Gallery to be a dated relic of an ancient time, and neither inviting, nor pleasant to be around, or inside.
But that's just my opinion
celluloid_dream
4mo ago
Speaking of taste, lately 4o has very much been passing the vibe check, and 3.7 Sonnet very much hasn't been.
I'm now using Claude almost exclusively as a workhorse and ChatGPT as more of a conversation partner, when it used to be the other way around. 4.5 is even better
celluloid_dream
2yr ago
It's a useful distinction, and I see you've taken care to avoid "good/bad" judgements, but it's interesting you're still making positive claims under aesthetics which I think demand justification. For instance, that certain colours "will work". Oh will they? Why? Because something something colour wheel theory? What if I like the wrong combos? On what basis can you object? Pure appeal to popularity?
I don't think aesthetics are so quantifiable because year after year I see things that were once explained to me as hard fast prohibitions with hand-waving justifications like "because it would ruin the silhouette, obviously" then become the next big trend. Maybe I'm misreading here and you mean aesthetics are totally value-free. There's combos on the colour wheel axes and off, but it doesn't weigh in on whether either is more correct than the other.
celluloid_dream
2yr ago
Half the items on that list are not end goals, but (to them) necessary intermediate steps before tech or progress finds a better solution. Barring extreme identitarians, most fat/disabled/trans people wish they weren't and would like to change their situation. Antifa/BLM/squatters would similarly (I think) claim to not want to exist in an ideal world.
The rest are preferences. Would you agree that there is at least some contention over the aesthetic value of piercings/tattoos/graffiti/drugs? It's not like there's no precedent for them in human civilization.
celluloid_dream
2mo ago
Did you notice that I described Carney that way in my post? That's also what I said in my introduction of the video transcript to the LLM (not included with the pastebin), so the fault is mine, though I don't even admit it's false. Two months is a short enough time to be PM that I think most people would still describe him as "new", especially since the time was almost entirely spent campaigning.
I agree! No one is writing a bland and direct summary. That's a problem! I have such a hard time getting that anywhere. Journalists invariably give too much "important context", while excising things they deem "not important", and that's largely where the bias creeps in.
Worth noting that the article you linked is much longer (I specifically asked for short), and includes additional Q&A not included with the video I gave it. I'm confident if I could find the full video + Q&A, and altered my prompt to ask it to give context on important recent events, and gave it a word count, it would deliver something equal to the Guardian piece there.
celluloid_dream
2mo ago
Dictionary? Translation? I guess, but in the current year, if you're not running every page through Claude to see what you missed, what are you doing?
celluloid_dream
2mo ago
Just try and give me a single example of LLM output that's remotely comparable to quality human work.
I just fed it a video transcript of a recent press conference by the new Canadian PM, and got this article.
I'm not going to get into percentiles, but I would say it's fine - comparable to human work for an easy quotes-and-summary article, and free of annoying media clickbait traps like making half the article about Trump.
celluloid_dream
1yr ago
"Seven hundred and sixty-six cases of snow sport head injuries were identified over six winter seasons. Of these cases..."
Without going into every study in that review, the obvious flaw is: people who aren't injured don't show up in the data. They're taking people who already have a head injury, and then noting helmet or no helmet.
Yeah, you're still going to have a bad time if you accelerate your head into something solid at a high enough speed, but given that it might happen, I'm 100% going to choose to put foam and plastic in the way to dissipate the impact. If you had to fall onto groomed snow and land on your head, say from a standing position, not even at speed, and I offer you the choice of wearing a helmet or not, would you really prefer not to wear one?
celluloid_dream
1yr ago
After playing through Act 2, I think I'd advise starting the game as one of the origin characters, specifically Shadowheart or Lae'zel, rather than creating your own.
For one thing, you get to have 4 written characters in play at once rather than 3+generic protag
But also, it feels like the game is supposed to be their story. Eg. Shadowheart begins
celluloid_dream
2yr ago
Interesting. So the obvious workaround would be for existing retailers to close during declared emergencies and reopen as (or sell their stock to) a new company "Emergency-Mart!" that has never previously sold that merchandise, who can then freely sell it at the higher price customers are willing to pay.
Does that happen in New Jersey?
celluloid_dream
5d ago
Yes, actually just get a good LLM to read over the chapter you just finished and catch anything you might have missed. I feel like I got SO MUCH more out of the books this way.
celluloid_dream
1mo ago
Yes, absolutely, and I do, but a lot of drivers aren't paying as much attention.
celluloid_dream
1mo ago
To get those numbers, I assume housing supply is rising, but is still artificially held back in order to keep it as a viable-but-not-good investment?
That sounds a little crazy to me. If you could fix the problem faster, surely you should.
I'm a great fan of "meaning" names - especially ones evoking natural beauty (Brooke, Cliff, Dawn, River..), months/seasons (April, May, June* Summer, Autumn..), animals (Bear, Fox, Raven..). I feel they have a certain metaphorical upside. They're ripe for wordplay, poetic double-entendre, etc.
You're safe to pick from a huge number of respectable options, but on the other hand, someone has to blaze trail and name their son Marmot first. It's going to weird the first time. Everyone hears it, rolls their eyes, doesn't like it. Then someone "does it well", owns the name, normalizes it and gives license for future use.
*June is kind of a double reference, if you think about it
"Generational warfare" was perhaps hyperbolic. I mean that the government is propping up assets that, absent their meddling, should come down in value, if things were at all sane like in the US.
It doesn't help the younger generation of Canadians now if their parents will eventually croak in 25 or 30 years and leave them the house (along with god knows what owed in deferred property tax. Have fun with that, kids! Edit: actually, maybe this is only a BC thing), nor does it help those who can't bank on an inheritance.
celluloid_dream
1yr ago
Sure, I'll grant they reduce auditory awareness, and possibly lead to accidents like this (though, snowboarder should have shoulder checked, and skier should have seen them since they were uphill).
On the other hand, accidents like that happen regardless, and if they're going to happen to me, I want to be wearing goggles that won't shatter into my face like sunglasses, and a helmet that will protect my noggin.
celluloid_dream
1yr ago
Text-to-speech while doing something mindless.
That helps a bit, but ultimately it's a problem of too much content, too little time.
celluloid_dream
2yr ago
This one reminded me of @Primaprimaprima 's post on internet addiction a while ago. I think I'm still of the same opinion.
celluloid_dream
2yr ago
Yeah, trumpet and other brass instruments are miserable because you lose your emboucher without continual upkeep. After enough time off, you physically can't play the notes, even if you remember how. Oh, and the noise. There are harmon mutes for that though.
celluloid_dream
2yr ago
I hear that. The headphone jack was a great standard. You could bring along a cheap male-male cable and interface with nearly any device with a speaker.
The good news is that Bluetooth in the current year is that universal standard. It's supported by as many, if not more devices. I initially thought charging the headphones would be annoying, but I find I rarely need to do it. The charging case keeps them topped up. Plus, you can still use your wired headphones with a lapel clip BT adapter. It's much better than trying to use the awkward phone port ones that always come loose.
celluloid_dream
2yr ago
There are natural and unnatural game politics. Example: SSBU (online). It's a fighting game that is most often matched as a 1v1, but occasionally puts players in 3-way 1v1v1s.
Now, the natural politics that happen in a 3-way (IMO) is that all participants begin by attacking each other equally. If player A gets too far ahead, B and C focus attacks more on them to pull A back down to their level. If player C drops too far behind, A and B avoid trying to "finish them off", since either A or B spending time attacking C leave themselves open for the other to attack them in return and take the lead. As a result, 3 evenly matched players usually end up with a close finish where anyone could win. Exciting!
... except this rarely happens. In actual play, A and B immediately begin the match by signaling that they want to form an alliance against C. A and B then easily double-team C until C is eliminated, then finish the match as a 1v1. I consider this much less exciting than the alternative, but dynamics demand that players play this way, because if they refuse to ally and the other player does ally, they become C, and lose.
I consider the first situation to be natural, because the politics are dictated by the flow of the game. The second is unnatural because players are plotting on a social level with each other before the game begins.
from "how and why to be ladylike (for women with autism)":
and that is very similar to the dynamic I see going on with Aella and the ex-rat diaspora here, and other places. I see a burning, seething resentment far in excess of what she's actually said or done. For this particular stunt, I think Amadan is probably right and it's at least half an act, but nevertheless, I think people should try and cool their emotions about her. - just chill? Live and let live.
As someone on twitter said: (can't be bothered to go find it) "Aella is what first-principles thinking actually looks like". That's what is so great about her. If that lead her to heroic quantities of LSD, a high body count, and an unorthodox bathing schedule.. well, so be it. She has honest to god genuine curiosity. Yes, often wrapped in attention-bait trolling, but curiosity nonetheless. I don't follow her, but I'm always pleased when some article or tweet of hers comes down the feed challenging a taboo that no one else will touch. Agree with her or not, one Aella is more valuable than a thousand haters shouting "boo! whore!"
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