heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
No bio...
User ID: 1819
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
(I'm not sure if I'm one of the people you had in mind when you wrote this, so this might be irrelevant.) In our last exchange, you seemed content with being surrounded by physical ugliness because you can find beauty in a lot of higher maths and sciences. My objection was, and remains, that leave us midwits who don't have the g to see things the way you do out in cold. That doesn't mean I think all western society needs to be burned to the root, it just means I wish we didn't always go for the cheapest, blandest options.
Further I reject the framing of your hypothetical here too. I don't think it clarifies much. Why can't we achieve new breakthroughs in math and science while still making buildings that are at least inoffensive?
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
I also prefaced that statement with ""in my darker and less sober moments"
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
As for your local architects, run-of-the-mill architects follow the trends set by elite architects. If your local govt is only building concrete boxes, the fault lies with them, not with the field of architecture. Because governments in other parts of the country seem to be able to build something other than concrete boxes.
I...don't disagree? I'm confused where you think I'm blaming architects in my comments here.
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
I feel like this is a reference to something but I have no idea what. I can say that Saturday night's alright for fighting.
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
My understanding is that it was considered "navigable" under the legal definition, but farther upstream (heh) in the comments someone said that ACOE doesn't consider it navigable, so now I'm lost.
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
Yes, I'm familiar with that one. Side rant: Holy !@#$%^&!@##&^%$#%^& was the MSM reporting on that case terrible. Even some of the better outlets I follow were reporting it as a 5-4 split, rather than the 9-0 "WTF, EPA!?" that it was.
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
Here is the legal US definition of navigable waterway: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-33/chapter-II/part-329
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
I'm not completely incapable of find aesthetic pleasures in certain weird number sequences but I don't think of MRNA vaccines or neural imaging techniques as beautiful. I think "hey, neat!" or "that's an impressive feat" but beauty never comes top-of-mind for me for a lot of scientific advancements. You and I are probably operating off entirely different definitions of what's beautiful.
You're not saying outright that I have to defer, but your statement "It is that if you are going to criticize contemporary architecture, then it helps to come across as knowing what you are talking about" certainly carries the implication that I ought to be deferring to those with the right vocabulary.
At any rate, I've edited my comment from "brutalist" to "ugly-ass concrete boxes" because that's what's getting built in my area. As I stated in my original reply to you, my city/county/state certainly isn't hiring Pritzker-nominated architects to design its public buildings.
Edit: Stupid auto-correct.
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
While I acknowledge your point, I still find this response unsatisfying. As relative mid-wit here, I probably don't have the IQ to truly understand and appreciate the beauty of higher-level maths or sciences. Are me and mine just SOL, no beauty for us?
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
Maybe but that wasn't the point of my comment. I was simply correcting your apparent misconception on the meaning of the term "navigable waters" in this case.
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
It is that if you are going to criticize contemporary architecture, then it helps to come across as knowing what you are talking about.
This is exactly the attitude that fmaa was talking about. Sorry I didn't learn the specifics of what various kinds of concrete boxes are called but that doesn't mean I automatically have to defer to the aesthetic tastes of someone with a better grasp of the vocabulary and jargon. Whatever you want to call it, it's ugly and I hate it.
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
I don't disbelieve you, but it think it's fair to point out that my state and local governments probably aren't hiring Pritzger-winning architects to design and install infrastructure and government buildings. The rational part of my brain knows this is driven far more by cost than aethestics; way less to just slap up an ugly-ass concrete structure without any kind of regard for appearance.
In my darker (and less sober) moments, I wonder if there's an active campaign against beauty itself. On my local city sub-Reddits I often see people complaining about "wasteful" government spending on a modicum of ornamentation on anything. Faux stone veneers on highway support columns? Wasteful. Planting trees along the highway? Wasteful. Apparently brutalism ugly-ass concrete boxes is the only acceptable architectural form these days.
Edited for Gdanning's pedantry
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
Cool.
"Navigable", in the legal sense, can be anything as small as a kayak or johnboat.
ETA: The legal definition of navigable waters: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-33/chapter-II/part-329
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
A lot of people are just mad that Musk controls their favorite toy.
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
This one is sci-fi-fantasy-ish but I highly recommend The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway. It is the most unique book I've ever read.
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
Yes, but somehow only the Friday is aesthestically pleasing to me. Don't care about the rest, don't know why. Yes, I'm sober why do you ask.
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
Every Friday this month is a multiple of 7 and I find this aesthetically pleasing for some bizarre reason.
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
Interestingly, my state put up billboards and wall-ads encouraging gay men to get the monkeypox vaccine and get a PrEP prescription so they could "get your pride on."
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
It's like the seagull "mine" meme from Finding Nemo.
heavywaternettipot
Token Midwit
1yr ago
Caviezel's been radioactive for a while and his attachment to this project pretty much guaranteed it was going to be controversial.
A couple of acquaintances of mine and I had a brief talk about this last night. My super-lefty acquaintance is irate that anyone would consider going to see it. He doesn't believe in separating the art from the artist ("we must separate the bad actors from the power structures that enable them") and has an unfortunate tendency for guilt-by-association, so he was suspicious of Ballard by extension. My more centrist acquaintance thinks it's bringing awareness to a under-discussed issue.
Probably too low-brow for the normal thread but apparently the RFK Jr campaign dinner was a real gas:
RFK Jr. Press Dinner Explodes in War of Words and Farting
I'm amending my will to make sure my epitaph reads "Beer-Fueled Sex Rocket".
Edit: fixed formatting
Amanda Tapping remains my high-school crush and probably responsible for why I used to date older women.
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