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PaperclipPerfector  16d ago (text post)   2637 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 21, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I've been watching Chain Smoker Cat recently and it's a lot of fun. It's the first time in years I've watched something as it came out. In the age of streaming and binging, I forgot the excitement of a new episode dropping. It's nice to have a thing to look forwards to each week. Also I'm a massive degenerate with a thing for nekos so it's the perfect show for me

Been loving this show. Banger opening, with lots of references for cinephiles. Pretty unique; you don't often see an anime like this (closest would be Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt or Tokyo Godfathers). Yani Neko reminds me of my sister (I hate my sister). Most people think best girl is either Yaku Neko or Kansai, but I disagree; best girl is clearly Hame Neko (DFC, certified virgin, gamer girl, only problems are bladder control and anger issues which is pretty mild compared to most of the cast). And, yes, watching it with the rest of the internet as it gets released has been a trip; I guess that's why people prefer consuming new media?

Kansai is depicted as the most attractive and stable. I'm thinking Yaku is best girl. Pros: Earnest, looks up to a friend, writes bad web fiction (relatable), can smoke weed with. Cons: Addicted to heroin. My issue with Hame is that she's blatantly fake.

The creator of the film Obsession, Curry Barker, claims that the One Wish Willow is not a monkey's paw, but I feel like this doesn't make sense, or, if it is true, it undermines the point of the film.

Bear wishes for "Nikki to love [him] more than anyone in the fucking world." An aligned One Wish Willow should not have made her obsessive to the point of murder and cat-cooking. Even if you follow the logic that the real Nikki would never fall in love with him, so it has to create a Freaky Nikki persona who would, that also just isn't what he asked for.

Even if he was more in love with the idea of Nikki, than in her in her full personhood, Freaky Nikki is not Nikki, and not just in the minimal way that his wish should have implied.

I feel like Barker's statement implies that a more evil wish, like, "I wish for Nikki's personality to be completely erased and replaced with a robot persona that carries out my orders exactly as I intend them" would have had better results than Bear's comparatively less evil wish. But since the film is a classic "be careful what you wish for" horror movie, I find it easier to believe that the wish granter is actively malevolent in how it interprets any wish that impacts human agency, and even a wish like that will have a bad outcome somehow.

Like, is the take away really supposed to be that Bear simply should have waited to get a better sense of the limitations and proclivities of his wish-granting artifact, by watching other people use theirs, and then make his wish after running it by a lawyer? Surely not.

I'm not sure how much I should comment since I have only heard about the movie second hand, but I imagine that "all bad things that happened are 100% his responsibility and exactly what he wished for" is an easy way for the director to defend himself from accusations that he is making excuses for a male character that by all accounts the feminist set considers problematic and evil. In arguments-as-soldiers-verse, complicating details that water down the perfect narrative are enemy bullets.

It's just an odd sort of moralizing. Bear was just making a wish on a tacky toy from a New Age store, and it is clear from his own disbelief at Nikki's reaction that night and into the next day that he had expected the One Wish Willow to be about as effective as a birthday wish or a wish on a penny fountain or a falling star.

Maybe it's a bit loser coded to literally wish for someone to fall in love with you, but he had almost no reason to think that he had a genuine wishing artifact. And even if he truly wanted what he wished for, it's not like you want people's free will to be subverted so you can get your wish. If you throw a penny in a fountain and wish for your crush to fall in love with you, you're usually just hoping that they'll organically fall in love with you (however contradictory that is with the action you're taking.) If you wish to get your big promotion on a wishing star, you're not really hoping that your boss will be possessed by a demon and forced to give you a promotion.

Bear factually derailed Nikki's life, but he did so largely in ignorance of what he was doing.

While the apparent life-or-death stakes do certainly confound matters - the most obvious alternative path the film presents us with is Bear sacrificing his own life to undo the wish, although he still could have tried going to a priest or something, digging a little harder - I do think it meaningfully condemns Bear that he repeatedly tries to get Nikki to be loving-but-not-crazy after he has realized that the wish has subverted her free will.

Yeah, I think Bear was a selfish coward, but I'm not sure he had a lot of good options once he had the conversation with customer service and was sure what was happening and how he could end it.

Sacrificing yourself to save someone you essentially accidentally whammied with a wish would be very noble, but it is a tall ask, and I'm not sure most people put in Bear's situation would be able to go through with it. And the other out he is given, when the real Nikki begs him to kill her isn't exactly great either, since he's going to be the prime suspect if her body is ever discovered. So he's got two no win options, his life is over in either option that "fixes" his mistake.

Bear is absolutely selfish and not concerned about the real Nikki at all, and even his actions at the end, trying to get Ian to make it so he had never made a wish can be read as manipulative (sure, it would presumably undo Sarah's murder, and get rid of all the social consequences for Bear and Nikki, but it also probably leaves Bear able to make a new wish, and I don't think that's an accident. Even at the end he was trying to find a way to get an alternate version of his wish granted, knowing full well what it entailed.)

I think Bear's morally bad in a banal way, but I think if he had been "good" but not saintly, I'm not sure how things could have turned out much better for him or Nikki. I guess if Bear had sought out more One Wish Willows before someone died, and tried to calmly explain things to Ian, there's a small chance Ian would take it seriously enough to actually make the wish to undo things, but I have my doubts.

Nikki loved Bear more than anyone else in the world. Bear did not love Nikki that much. Thatā€™s what caused the problems. You see how the first few months when she thinks he does are fine.

The movie clearly distinguishes between the entity created by the wish, who obsessively loves Bear, and Nikki, who is also in there and hates Bear. When she screams and pulls back from the kiss on the first night, or when she begs Bear to kill her, that's not the entity, that's Nikki.

It's almost not even a monkey's paw, because it didn't do the thing he wished for: Nikki doesn't love him, the willow just inserted another entity that loved him into Nikki's body. I suppose if that entity is also named Nikki it technically monkey's-pawed him, but it's not a particularly clever monkey's paw in that case: it could have just set events up so that he became the owner of a devoted dog named Nikki, because he didn't specify which Nikki.

On a literal level yes, he made a deal with the devil and got screwed. Iā€™m talking about thematically.

Nikki loved Bear more than anyone else in the world.

I don't think this is in the text, if you look at real world examples you can find plenty of people who love their partner more than anything else - but they may love other things also, they may sacrifice their relationship with their love to help them and so on.

Nikki loves to the exclusion of anything else and in the worst possible and most toxic way. Loving someone more than anything else doesn't need to result in literal murder etc.

If the wish wasn't monkey's pawed you'd see something more like normal relationships where a partner is very much into the other partner.

If I was in that car with my girlfriend, it wouldn't have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of blood not in that automobile cabin and then me saying, ā€œOK, we're going to Applebeeā€™s honey, I know itā€™s that time of the month, don't worry.ā€

Barker doesn't strikes me as someone who very concerned with rigorous logical world building. He does seem to think a lot about producing an interesting and entertaining product. I don't think the movie is trying to make a point or even trying to explore any themes very deeply. I think the simplest explanation for the things he's said is that he doesn't want to be constrained in how the world works. Is it a monkey's paw? If he says yes that restricts in-world stories where the wish didn't have bad consequences. He's also said it's not a demon possession movie, but not really clarified beyond that. It's very clearly a monkey-paw-demon-possession-like movie, but there's no benefit in actually committing to this. I imagine coming from a sketch comedy background his instinct is to avoid boxing himself in, especially with an idea that turned out to be such a success.

Barkerā€™s commentary is just post hoc rationalization to appease feminist seethe following the movie.

From a lipstick feminist perspective, the takeaway is that Bearā€”as a low status maleā€”had no right to wish for anything, much less be deserved of having a wish of his come true (even if accidental and mangled).

Bear should have read the One Wish Willowā€™s mind and known what would have happened. Failing that and after making the wish, he should have immediately recognized his wrongdoing and should have been hyperagentic and competent enough to just Figure It Out and undo whatever the One Wish Willow did. No, instead the clueless ā€œNice Guyā€ chose to rape Nikki with the One Wish Willowā€™s help.

Just have the emotional intelligence to recognize when a supernatural, possibly omnipotent force is up to no good and Do the Bear Minimum in defeating it to go back to accepting your fate as a low status male. Ugh, itā€™s that easyā€”why canā€™t men just get it? The bar is on the floor. This is why women choose the animal bear.

The wish itself is just window-dressing.
James Bond or Jason Bourne are an idealized, fantasized version of real spies/special forces soldiers. They are a convenient vehicle to show action scenes and maybe share some ideas about terrorism, conspiracies, state secrets, geopolitical issues etc.
In the same manner, having a man 'cause' a woman to be crazy allows to show what a crazy woman looks like, and give some words of caution about it.
Notice how in this real life setting you have a woman having multiple meltdowns in public and nobody really reacts whatsoever? Notice how the friend group is at best cursorily inquiring if the man is taking advantage of the crazy woman?

The message of the movie is possibly that a crazy woman will ruin your life, perhaps drive you to suicide and nobody will save you. The director is pretty clever for finding something that resonates with viewers and getting away with it.

And by Barker's own admission, the first draft of the screenplay was just a movie about a toxic abusive relationship with no supernatural elements at all. It was only a chance viewing of a Simpsons episode that inspired him to include the "monkey's paw" element.

I doubt Barker was consciously thinking "if I make a movie about a woman with borderline personality disorder who's the villain, people will call me a misogynist, so I'd better come up with some pretext by which a male character is really to blame for her villainy". It was probably more of a subconscious thing, where the "monkey's paw" plot device felt "safer" for reasons he likely couldn't put into words.

I didn't know that, makes me like the guy even more.

Citation in case anyone doubts me:

CURRY BARKER: Well, it's interesting. I had this idea for a while about an obsessed person, and just the relationship and how that could go crazy, but it didn't have anything to do with the wish. It was just this idea of, like, an obsessed relationship and codependency and kind of diving into that.

Iā€™d say James Bond was more the idealized, fantasized person youā€™re thinking of in that case. Not to dump on James Bond movies, but Jason Bourne was more the realism counterpart to what you got with Bond. A world where the police arenā€™t completely stupid and incompetent and the rest of the world the character inhabits doesnā€™t drop away or become indifferent to the plot.

Movies donā€™t stem from a vacuum. They emerge out of the cultural milieu and trends people respond and react to. Iā€™d have thought movies like Citizen Vigilante were a clear indicator of this. Watch Mehdi Hasan lose his mind and become butthurt over it, and becoming more emotional than even Piers Morgan was glorious to watch. Stick to criticizing Israel homie, because itā€™s what youā€™re good at.

Iā€™ve dealt with and certainly know ā€œcrazyā€ women. Depending on how you want to define it, but theyā€™re definitely unhinged for sure. When I was a teenager there was a girl I was friends with in high school that wanted to have sex with me, in her car, parked right outside her ex-boyfriendā€™s house; in the fucking hood of all places. Are you fucking insane? We were active with each other but I nopeā€™d out of that situation. And Iā€™ve got a few handful of examples of similar experiences with girls Iā€™ve dealt with who were equally eccentric. When I was living out of state with my girlfriend at the time, there were multiple instances of looks both of us got (or rather her) while we were on the street and out doing things. Physically, she was a complete knockout of a woman. She was in volleyball in high school and other extracurricular sports, was in shape, had a huge bust of a chest, very attractive face and eyes, and converted to Islam at a later point in her life. But we had a very long history together, we knew each other, our friendā€™s and familyā€™s, etc. Ironically, my closest friends didnā€™t like her, the ones more on the periphery did; and most of my family didnā€™t like her either (not for her religious views at all but for her personality which they viewed as unbecoming of a woman; they viewed her as stuck up and someone who didnā€™t know her place; my younger female cousin and her even got into a real nasty argument at one point) but were respectful, even before we got our own place together and she was living with us, before we moved.

Anyway when we lived together in our apartment one day we had to go to the AutoZone to get a part for her car. She had a white Hyundai that was a beater and we had a lot of money saved for her to get a new car, but she wanted to keep it going awhile longer while we continued to save more. We were younger but werenā€™t strangers to standing on our own two feet before. We go inside, get the item and when we went to pay for it, the white guy behind the register who was probably middle age by my standards, tried asking her out and for her number, while I was right in front of him (didnā€™t know who he imagined I was). She just smirked and looked over at me and I just calmly said ā€œThatā€™s cute. Sheā€™s in a relationship.ā€ And he had a surprised look on his face, we got our stuff and left and laughed a bit when we got outside. But then, we had to actually do the labor to fix the car part. Well she had a brilliant idea. She called someone she knew in the area (a young guy, probably our age at that time who was a mechanic), to see about fixing it. In his off hours, he comes over to our apartment still in his mechanic suit, while the car was parked right in front of the apartment, jacks the car up and does about two and a half hours work of labor (for free) and changes the part out, probably lowkey hoping heā€™d earn his way into her good graces and hoping heā€™d have gotten laid, despite telling him beforehand that we were together. This guy coaxed himself out of probably $750.00 on his ā€œhopes and dreams.ā€ And there were other experiences we had as well. In a restaurant once, in an apparel store. You see first hand how attractive women always get lowkey inundated with subtle (and not so subtle) advances of men who are trying everything they can because the want to fuck you. But she was also a bit ā€œunhingedā€ at times. We had sex on the beach once and got surrounded by 6 people who started watching us because we just happened to get in the moment. This was all at 1am, and it was instigated with her making the first move. Looking back at everything in retrospect, you could say she was ā€œcrazyā€ if you want; I just think she had an exotic flair for things at times.

The James Bond from the books was a lot sadder. The violent and sexual wish fulfillment is still there, but Fleming was a lot more realistic about the consequences. He understands how sad Bondā€™s life and failure to connect with women are. In the books, the girl doesnā€™t just conveniently disappear at the beginning of the next movie. Fleming actually goes into exactly why the relationship ended up failing, usually because Bond is an emotional cripple. Sometimes because a hunky American Marine stole her heart, the wanker. The fact that he has no wife or children at 40 weighs on him.

And book Bond is just as effective a killer as his movie counterpart, but he takes a lot less pleasure in it. One of the books opens with ten pages of Bond brooding over a cartel sicario he had just had to stab. This man was trying to gut him like a pig, but taking his life still really bothers Bond.

Maybe this is because the books were written by a real womanizing killer.

Yeah, book Bond is still a womanizing super spy fantasy, but he also will fail to catch someone he's chasing because his massive cigarette habit causes him to fall into a coughing fit, he explicitly justifies his luxurious lifestyle as a conscious choice to steal as much back from the government he sold his soul to as possible, and ruminates about how he doesn't particularly care about Britain and he's mostly just kind of carrying on out of habit. There's an entire short story where he's just hanging out listening to a sad story about how someone's marriage fell apart. I love how darkly depressing the books are in between the set pieces.

Iā€™ve also heard the Bond of the books were quite different from his cinematic incarnation. Never read the books so I canā€™t say. Of all the Bond actors, is there one that comes closer to Flemingā€™s representation on him more than the others?

Growing up my Grandad had a shelf in his study that was just packed with old paperbacks that included a lot of the original Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Ian Fleming books. I devoured that stuff as a teenager, and as an enjoyer of both the books and the movies I would say that one of the core differences between "Book Bond" and "Movie Bond" is that the human cost of violence is much more of a central theme in the books than it is in the movies. Book bond is quippy but it's much more "gallows humor" than "oh my aren't we having fun".

As far as actors are concerned, Connery is iconic for good reason but I think Craig in Casino Royale is the clear winner in terms of being a faithful adaptation of Fleming's character with Timothy Dalton as runner up.

Aside from concessions made for the change in time period/setting, 2006's Casino Royale is an honest adaptation of the novel with a lot of scenes like Meeting Vesper on the Train Scene and Stairwell Fight (along with it's immediate prelude and aftermath) lifted beat-for-beat from the book. Meanwhile, while neither of Dalton's outings as Bond are direct adaptations of a Fleming story, I do feel like they captured "the vibe" of Fleming's stories.

None of them really capture Bondā€™s attitude to violence right. Maybe Brosnan, but his Bond is very guarded and opaque so itā€™s hard to tell. Physically, Timothy Dalton, heā€™s the spitting image of the portrait Fleming commissioned of Bond. In terms of his complicated relationship with women being closest to the books, your best bets are Casino Royale, or On Her Majestyā€™s Secret Secret Service. Many here will say From Russia With Love but Iā€™ve never liked it for some reason. Ironically, I think the movie Bonds do really nail how book Bond would have interacted with a female superior: cold professionalism shot through with a hurt little boy looking for his mother.

Dalton stuck in my mind as I was writing the previous comment. A lot of people thought he was terrible but I thought he was one of the best. Connery is still in the forefront of most peopleā€™s minds, but I always thought he was intellectually clumsy and aloof a lot of the time. Dalton captured the darker and more pointed aspect of things that I always felt Bondā€™s character should have been. Brosnan was good too. Lazenby I have vague memories of but people have said he was one of the best ones too.

Maybe Iā€™m just one of those guys with odd cinematic preference. I was also someone who thought First Contact was the best Star Trek film and Deep Space 9 was one of the best Star Trek shows of all time. I preferred it over TNG (which I also loved). Sisko was an excellent character and I thought a lot of the content was top tier (and yes Iā€™m aware of how fledgling it was among the audience), but I think most people were just dead wrong about it.

This is the same bullshit way of thinking about the movie that your opponents use; they dismiss One Wish Willow as an agentic force that deserves part of the blame for the film's events because it's "just an allegory for" men controlling women. You've gotta handle stories at least a little bit literally.

I mean I don't claim to know what the director had in mind making the movie, but if I were a director trying to sell a movie showing a crazy BPD girlfriend and graphic physical violence against a woman, I'd try to give the impression that there's some kind of feminist message.
I'm not a horror fan as I can't make myself vulnerable enough to be scared on behalf of fictional characters, but I liked the story and appreciated the dark comedy throughout.
I think it'd have been interesting if there was a plausible doubt that the magic worked at all. Story would have been more subtle and maybe not worked as well as it did.

For many reasons, I'm inclined to say that Barker is simply lying about this, which is unfortunate because it's a great movie; fortunately, the lie doesnā€™t survive contact with the film itself. It's a classic be-careful-what-you-wish-for story, and also a classic deal-with-the-devil story; these archetypes classically go together and the film telegraphs both of them hard. Bear makes an evil wish and it is granted by an evil power; its interpretation of his wish is malicious, but the whole point of that malice is to damn him, and it can't do that with a cheap trick unrelated to his intent in making the wish. So Nikki is possessed by another personality (a demon, because this is basically the devil granting the wish) because Bear wouldnā€™t actually mind his wish being granted that way in principle; that personality is fucking crazy because that's the level of intensity Bear initially envisioned. And the Willow made its way into Bear's hands in the first place because he was the sort of person to do that, because he was the sort of person to wander into a random shady New Age magic shop and pick up some tacky shit with purported magic powers.

TBH I think a large part of Barker's motivation in making these implausible claims about his film is just that he's scared of Hollywood reading it as religious. Which gets lost in a lot of the normie social media discourse on it, which thinks of demonic possession as a stock horror movie trope like vampires or zombies and not as a phenomenon a lot of the world believes in as part of their faith.

Given that Nikkiā€™s body is covered head to toe in bizarre inscriptions and sigils by the end, Iā€™m not sure how people donā€™t pick up on the fact there is a literal aspect to the movie in addition to the metaphorical one.

I thought that was her crudely copying the tattoos of the girl she killed to be more like her to appeal to Bear.

It is. Theyā€™re the same tattoos.

But... but thatā€™s so sad!

he was the sort of person to wander into a random shady New Age magic shop and pick up some tacky shit with purported magic powers.

Wait, the guy literally finds the wish-granting thingee in a creepy shop? That seems like a pretty strong monkey's paw callout in and of itself...

I kept reading this infuriating take about demonic possession or something.

'anyone in the world' clearly includes psychotic, insane people that do crazy things like killing themselves to further political or religious causes. The magic is entirely about non-consensually shifting the behavior of a regular woman into the most insane possible woman infatuated with main character. You can probably find evidence of separate insane women doing all of the insane things Nikki does in the movie.

The Bear -the one they chose, get it?- essentially chose to have the worst possible BPD girlfriend.

Like, is the take away really supposed to be that Bear simply should have waited to get a better sense of the limitations and proclivities of his wish-granting artifact, by watching other people use theirs, and then make his wish after running it by a lawyer? Surely not.

The take-away is that you should pick carefully who you associate with, and pay attention to who you're spending time with. The wishing willow was only necessary to get the movie classified as 'horror' and maybe not straight up have the movie branded as a 'b# be crazy yo' movie.

The filmmaker was doing comedy/horror videos before. This is essentially a dark comedy about domestic violence. There's definitely something comedic about the pretty taboo ultra-violent scene unnecessarily lasting 30s too long 'look I get to show this on a screen, and I'm making millions too'.

'anyone in the world' clearly includes psychotic, insane people that do crazy things like killing themselves to further political or religious causes. The magic is entirely about non-consensually shifting the behavior of a regular woman into the most insane possible woman infatuated with main character. You can probably find evidence of separate insane women doing all of the insane things Nikki does in the movie.

While I think there is ambiguity in Bear's wording, I actually interpreted the wish to be for "Nikki to love [him] more than [she loves] anyone [else] in the fucking world" as opposed to for "Nikki to love [him] more than anyone in the fucking world [loves anyone else]."

This is part of why I say it is a monkey's paw, or some other flavor of asshole genie. Almost any wish in plain English is going to have enough ambiguity to ruin the person who makes the wish. (You wish for a million dollars? Okay, it's a million dollars in pennies and falls on your head and kills you.) The sign of a "good" genie, is that you make a wish in plain English, and they interpret in a way you would endorse via coherent extrapolated volition, or they at least make a good faith effort to give you what you asked for with no nasty gotchas.

If the One Wish Willow will just give you a million dollars in a pretty straightforward way, but it creates a demonic persona when you make a love potion wish, that's an entity that is out to get you in some way.

One interpretation means loving more than the most loving psycho out there, the other interpretation means loving somebody more than you love yourself, which might be even worse and explain most of the behaviors in the movie.
In that case of love, one can imagine it may be physically painful to be significantly apart from the loved one, like a junkie missing a dose.
Junkies are known to do crazy things for their drug, so that's also an explanation that does not require a demon.

The sign of a "good" genie, is that you make a wish in plain English, and they interpret in a way you would endorse via coherent extrapolated volition, or they at least make a good faith effort to give you what you asked for with no nasty gotchas.

I mean we have 'good genies' right now trying to give people what they want, without any magic, and we still end up with supposedly educated/smart people getting AI psychosis and thinking that they are the Chosen one who figured out some secret of the universe. Allegedly.

If the One Wish Willow will just give you a million dollars in a pretty straightforward way

One million dollars falling from the sky might still cause plenty of issues, from simple tax problems to the paranoia of losing it all. This already happens to people who win the lottery.

I don't think wish Nikki is necessarily a demon, but I don't think she's just Nikki + obsessive love for Bear.

In her first few moments of existing, she misspeaks and says her cat just died instead of Bear's. And while I can buy some of her behaviors as being normal person + overwhelming obsession, I just don't think cooking the cat or even the cat shrine are something a person with common sense would do as a grand gesture for their beloved.

With the way the real Nikki seems to surface and freak out from time to time, I think it is obvious wish Nikki is essentially a separate entity created by the wish.

I also just think that the reactions of the two magic shop employees, and the complaints department guy are a few degrees off from a normal person's. I'm not sure if they're all wish personas submerging a real human, or demons or what, but none of them seemed quite right to me. They were all too blase about the very dangerous product they were selling.

The cat thing is weird but again, she is obsessed with a guy, loves him more than herself, her well-being, her hygiene, her parents and everybody else she ever loved, and the main emotion she knows he is feeling at the time is grief for this creature. It makes some sense she would be driven to worship it as well.

With the way the real Nikki seems to surface and freak out from time to time, I think it is obvious wish Nikki is essentially a separate entity created by the wish.

I think this gets into psychological, cognitive theories of consciousness. The concept of 'fake it till you make it', or whatever sales seminar propagate, is about gaining the confidence to grow into certain psychological attributes. We are in some ways what we do. There is also Stockholm syndrome.
How does the magic work? Is it like inducing an addiction to a drug? Junkies probably hate being addicted to their chemical, yet they must take it.
Perhaps she gets rewarded if she gets validation that her love is legitimate, reciprocal, or something.
Perhaps what we are shown with the phone call to customer service is what she actually feels whenever she is apart from Bear.
What we see when she begs for death could simply be a moment of lucidity which I'm sure junkies also get.

I also just think that the reactions of the two magic shop employees, and the complaints department guy are a few degrees off from a normal person's.

These are the best parts of the movies and pretty much what the guy specializes in with his sketch comedy. Compare to the attitude of a long-time liquor store employee in a seedy part of town when a guy covered in vomit or perhaps blood comes in.

any wish in plain English is going to have enough ambiguity to ruin the person who makes the wish. (You wish for a million dollars? Okay, it's a million dollars in pennies and falls on your head and kills you.)

You know, I generally agree with you, but in fact Bear's buddy wishes for a million dollars and it comes in stacks of hundreds falling harmlessly from the ceiling, which complicates the monkey's paw claim.

Giving someone a billion dollars will turn them into a demonic asshole a lot quicker than any dark magic.

I would chalk it to either an angler fish strategy, or the OWW having a sense of dramatic irony.

Since there are enough OWWs in the world that you can see other people's wishes granted, maybe the OWW lures people in by granting a subset of wishes not touching on human agency in a completely straightforward way. That way, it generates positive word of mouth and gets more people to use it for the kinds of wishes it likes to corrupt.

Alternatively, maybe the OWW just knew with high probability that the guy would never get to use the money because of Nikki, so it was happy to grant the wish for the dramatic irony his death would produce.

I may be misremembering the movie, but didnā€™t Bearā€™s friend go to Bearā€™s house to brag about the money then immediately get shot by Nikki? That sequence of events was caused by the money, and would be a monkeyā€™s paw.

That sequence of events was caused by the money, and would be a monkeyā€™s paw.

In the original Monkey's Paw, it gets them their money by killing their son. I wouldn't consider a perfectly-fulfilled wish with bad consequences to be a Monkey's Paw.

It's the difference between:

A: I want a Porche 911 here right now!
Genie: Okay! Vroom, Smash!!

and

A: I want a Porche 911 here right now!
Genie: Okay!

(After years of enjoying it, his aggressive driving led to a fatal collision)

I don't dispute that the OWW occasionally grants wishes in a straightforward way.

The male shopkeeper at the magic shop made a wish, and it is implied he is perfectly satisfied with it. And Ian's wish for a million dollars is fulfilled with no gotchas.

But there are elements like the female shopkeeper's utter unhelpfulness. (Oh, you've gotten complaints from OWW customers who have died or wanted to die because of their wishes, maybe give a little bit more of a warning to the next customer then instead of saying it in a way that implies it is no big deal so he thinks you're joking?)

Whether they're literally demons or not, the two shopkeepers and the OWW customer service guy are definitely malevolent entities.

The two shopkeepers know they work in a spooky cursed curio shop and are doing a bit, let them have their fun.

That sequence of events was caused by the money

Difficult to say. Certainly I'd say that it wasn't "caused" in the same way that Bear's wish caused Nikki to become possessed. If we're stipulating that there's no free will in the Obsession universe and Ian could not have chosen otherwise but to go brag about the money when Nikki was home and therefore get shot then that has some significant implications on Bear's culpability and questions about monkey's paws and what caused what become somewhat moot - the whole sequence of events was predetermined anyway.

Im a believer in compatibilism, so I donā€™t think there is a contradiction between determinism and free will. My personal headcanon is that any wish from the one-wish-willow either directly causes something bad, like Nikkiā€™s possession, or indirectly causes something bad like the above sequence Friend gets money -> Friend goes to brag about it -> Friend gets shot by Nikki.

We are getting into death of the author territory at this point, so this is just a personal rationalization of the mechanics of the movie.

My personal interpretation is that the One Wish Willow cared more about screwing over Bear than Ian, because he had more to work with psychologically, but also it knew that Ian was doomed anyway because he'd wander into Bear's house minutes later. But it wouldn't be in-character for the One Wish Willow to kill Ian by dropping money on his head, anyway, because it's demonic, it cares about corrupting the soul; if it's going to corrupt a wish for money, it's going to do it by provoking further doubling-down on avarice.

but also it knew that Ian was doomed anyway because he'd wander into Bear's house minutes later.

So no free will in the Obsession cinematic universe? Difficult to assign blame then, or discuss whether the genie is an asshole.

This btw seemed a very weak part of the movie - Bear has already seen the money, wtf is Ian barging into Bear's house for?

After Hank Green's raking trough the coals for drinking the unholy water and eating the flesh of the Antichrist - aka using chatgpt to write his scripts - which other channels do you suspect of using it? I am fairly sure about Sabine Hossenfelder and Mentour Pilot in the last week.

I mean, I'm pretty sure a lot of Tom & Don's filler videos have their scripts heavily written by AI. But they also frequently go off script laughing at how retarded the script is, so I can't exactly hold it against them. The script just serves as the launch point for them to start clowning on whatever the script is talking about.

Also, Space King 5 at the end of the month, praise be.

There's a comedy formula from the Ricky Gervais show: two guys and an idiot. The idiot says things, one guy rips into him, and the other guy pulls the first guy back a bit to add nuance or let the idiot dig the hole deeper. I've seen this done with Let's Plays, where the (ideally janky or bad) video game serves as the idiot.

Since an AI will reliably make facile, wishy-washy statements, it makes for a good idiot. It'll also repeat the Party Line of whatever's currently PC.

Video Game thread

I'm trying to setup a multiplayer stardew valley game to play with my 5 and 7 year old. Possibly convince the wife to join too, but that is unlikely.

Nice.

Depending on personality of 5 year old, some can be randomly more bothered by the mines than similar environments in other games (like minecraft)- Note that clearing the mines floor 120 buffs all mines enemies permanently. Meanwhile, defense is pretty much a flat damage reduction. The monster eradication goal for killing crabs gives you a crabshell ring that provides 5 defense, characters can wear 2 rings, just need to buy more from guild, plus firewalker or space boots. If you don't hit 120, a defense of 14 will make kids pretty much invulnerable against the weakest enemies and still very sturdy against the strongest in mines.

I imagine my 7 year old will be terrified of the mines and my 5 year old will be upset if I dont let her go in them and fight enemies

Exactly. 7 year old needs the invulnerability, 5 year old needs a surprisingly explicit description of trench foot (or maybe WWI in general) that's why her character needs space boots.

haha its just their personalities. My 7 year old refuses to watch basically all movies. Any amount of drama is too much. 5 year old loves super hero stuff, spiderman especially and the concept of "beating up" bad guys.

I've played all the way through stardew valley two or three times. I'll be their guide, but I want to see how much they develop and figure things out on their own. I want to enable them to make whatever is possible in the game, while just playing a supporting role. Being their wikipedia and tutorial of sorts.

If they don't figure out aspects of the game, I plan to just play them quietly until they notice.

I discovered that one of my new coworkers is ex-military before entering medicine, and is perfectly happy to nerd out over the fun toys.

I think we were discussing the relative strengths of offensive and defensive hand grenades when the new female trainee interrupted us for something, apologized, and said that she had absolutely no idea what we were talking about, but said she loved the passion nonetheless. I said that I'd lob a hand grenade at her for disturbing the peace.

More relevant is the fact that he's my neighbor, and has a gaming PC. I might actually have someone to play with, though I give only 25% odds we manage a match anytime soon. Maybe Helldivers, or Arma Reforger, since he owns both.

Otherwise, I've occasionally played Rimworld, and I've made it a point of booting up my pc and getting the game (with about 100x the original install size of mods) loaded. It takes 15 minutes (and that's with a ridiculously powerful pc), and minimizes the activation energy required to sit down and game. I've managed it some days this week, which is a sign that much of the anhedonia has lifted. I just don't have the time for anything more involved.

If he is willing to play starship troopers with you and me let me know, I'll be having more free time during the day which translates to like 6pm-9pm uk time.

There's a video game version of Starship Troopers now, and they still don't put all the MI in power armor? Why not? Wouldn't Heinlein fans want more accuracy, normies want more powers, and Verhoeven fans want nothing to do with pretending to be some of the cannon fodder duped by Nazi Doogie?

The game is much more oriented on the movie. There is power armor now. But it is kinda boring and doesn't fit the game. Its very powerful but very slow. Its more fun moving around the map though.

When the game first launched people loved doing the meme level stuff from the movie.

I play with a light milsim group on discord. Tons of fun

Baby boomers and Gen Xers described a woman of average attractiveness (neither ugly nor hot) as "plain". Gen Z describes such women as "mid".

Does no equivalent word exist for Millennials?

ā€œWouldā€

Butterface

Eh, butterface is more precisely hot body, ugly face (hence, but her face...)

I would just say "plain".

"I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers" has been my elder millennial response since 2010. Before that it was "plain"

I am a millennial! I can answer this cultural question!

Its obviously a term for "woman I'd still gladly have sex with"

"Aight" by wqnm is great.

"basic" is ok, but carries some negative connotations. Like she turned you down even though she is a "basic bitch".

I'd look for terms such as "I'd hit that" or a casually spoken "Nice" as she walks by.

Aight

I will say that it's always struck me as sad sour-grapes-ish cope to talk as though the median woman was as unattractive (to men) as the median man is (to women). Although then again, my tastes in women have always been slightly off-center, so it's possible that when other guys showed me their concept of a ten I was always just shrugging at the idea that it was anything special.

I'm curious who your friends considered a ten that you disagreed with.

Mostly specific classmates I don't remember and you wouldnā€™t know, but in terms of celebrities the ultra-stereotypical examples are Megan Fox or Pamela Anderson, whose popularity I always thought of as a statistical curiosity but not something particularly relatable. I found my bottom-quartile female classmates significantly more attractive just on the basis that they were younger and physically present in the room with me.

I found my bottom-quartile female classmates significantly more attractive just on the basis that they were younger and physically present in the room with me.

Well, that hardly seems like an apples-to-apples comparison. Presumably if you had a choice between having sex with one of your bottom-quartile female classmates and having sex with Megan Fox, you'd opt for the latter.

Is Megan Fox what is supposed to be a stereotypical 10? I didn't remember how she looks like so I went and looked up, and tbh I am not a huge fan. Kinda confirms I have weird tastes - I'm not a big fan of many celebrities (speaking purely visually) that are commonly considered 10 in the US. Of course, comparing virtualized image on screen with a living person in the same room is pointless.

Fun activity: Compile a hotness matrix to encapsulate your personal "weird tastes".

I did something similar recently, looking at all the notches on my bedpost and sorting them by ethnicity, body shape and breast size.

Unsurprisingly, slim Asian women with small breasts predominated.

I think she's really hot in that one screenshot of Transformers (you know the one). But that's largely down to the pose/lighting/situation, and in general don't think she's all that hot (above average for sure, but not a 10). But I also think most Hollywood actresses aren't as hot as they're made out to be. I don't like the overly made up aesthetic that they're going for.

Y'all are, I'm sorry to say, fucking crazy.

Both her and Madison Beer (identical and slightly improved phenotype) are unbelievably hot.

I actually don't mind her music either, and she's not scared of showing off her body in the videos either.

Long faces considered harmful.

normie-straight-male-bait named Madison Beer

Simulation confirmed.

Certainly she was widely considered one of the most desirable women in the world at the tail end of the 2000s.

Okay, just further expounding upon the grim point I made about myself in a comment below:

Whenever I'm considering the relative attractiveness of actresses in movies and shows, I always like to check their dates of birth and when the project was actually filmed. It's like my equivalent of checking the early life section. It doesn't always turn out how I expect when I think to look it up, but it certainly does most of the time.

And of course most people know that 22-year-old Megan Fox in Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen mogs all subsequent Megan Fox. But IMO, she is herself mogged by 19-to-20-year-old Megan Fox in the first live-action Transformers, who is in turn super mogged by 14-to-15-year-old Megan Fox in Holiday In The Sun. She's maybe slightly mogged by the slightly younger 14-to-15-year-old Olsen twins in the same movie, but the three of them are all super mogged by 12-to-13-year-old Emma Watson in Prisoner Of Azkaban. Is she mogged by her 11-to-12-year-old self in Chamber Of Secrets? Maybe, I would need to go refresh my memory to say, but I think I've dug myself deep enough at this point.

And sure, a significant contingent of the world's entire male population got a celebrity crush on Emma Watson growing up because she was put in the spotlight, and I'll readily admit that she was above-average attractive. But not that far above average! Not top percentile, maybe not even top decile. If she'd been a bit closer to my age and gone to my school, she'd have just been another physically attractive girl, somewhere towards the upper end of a vaguely-sorted pool that included basically every girl who didnā€™t have something extremely wrong with her. Because at the end of the day, I don't really intuitively believe in Helens of Troy. I just don't think there are girls all that much more beautiful than a normal baseline girl's lifetime peak, which is around puberty. Now, I'm aware that my personal opinion is both deeply socially unacceptable and not representative of the typical man, but - you see how those two things pull in opposite directions, right? Like, you've seen all those studies where men list what age of women they're attracted to and the graph mysteriously starts at 18 and immediately plummets? Really broken world we've got here.

I feel confused by all the assertions that women are peak attractive at 16. My physical preference tends to be 22-23. I can't judge age very well, but the girls I'm most into keep turning out that way. I wonder if it's purely physical or if it's a demeanor thing.

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This seems like recreating this chart:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ-znD_Lu9AVrpLiELOZxVcQ4HXtP9eh-s7c02smvT9FO0Ax_cCMi5tmyI&s=10

Basically all women's 13-14 year old self mogs all the others and only a very tiny share are judged attractive after 45.

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I could be wrong, but I think I recall Aella's studies (or maybe someone else's?) suggesting peak physical attractiveness for women is somewhere around 16, which matches my intuitions.

But I think there are a couple of dynamics going on that distinguish a "celebrity 10" from an individual 10.

  1. They have to be a celebrity at all. While there were plenty of girls at my highschool who I would have rated as 10s, definitely more attractive than most celebrities, none of you will ever agree with me that they are 10s because you never saw them and don't know what they look like. Short of sharing facebook photos (many of which have been deleted since then), which I wouldn't do anyway and violate their privacy, I have no way of communicating this properly. It isn't shared knowledge, they are not valid candidates for "the most attractive women" in popular discourse, because they are not famous.

  2. Broad appeal. A woman with a specific look that some men really like and others don't might end up a 10 for 10% of the population and a 7 for 90% of the population. Meanwhile another woman might be a 9 in basically everyone's estimation. If you look around you you might find 10% of women have the specific look that appeals to you and conclude they are more attractive than the universal 9, but lots and lots of men are going to agree that the 9 is attractive, so when people average scores together the universal 9 might end up at the top while each of the niches end up lower on average (and then when we grade on a score the 9 curves up to a 10)

  3. Aging gracefully. Due to social concerns and/or cognitive dissonance, a lot of men are not going to admit that the 16-year-old is a 10, even if they are physically attracted to her. So the set of 22 year olds are going to get a lot more external praise and validation. Therefore, a woman who retains a higher fraction of her teenage peak appearance into her 20s is going to be at the top of the ratings as far as people say them out loud, even if in literal terms she is less attractive than other 16 year olds or even her own 16 year old self.

So I think 22-year-old Megan Fox is considered peak due to hitting all of these points. If she were not famous, few men would genuinely treat her as a 10 in terms of preferring her over the top 5% of women they've ever met in real life. But she is famous, and has broad appeal, and was attractive in her early 20s, so the discourse goes the way it goes.

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And of course most people know that 22-year-old Megan Fox in Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen mogs all subsequent Megan Fox. But IMO, she is herself mogged by 19-to-20-year-old Megan Fox in the first live-action Transformers, who is in turn super mogged by 14-to-15-year-old Megan Fox in Holiday In The Sun. She's maybe slightly mogged by the slightly younger 14-to-15-year-old Olsen twins in the same movie, but the three of them are all super mogged by 13-to-14-year-old Emma Watson in Prisoner Of Azkaban. Is she mogged by her 11-to-12-year-old self in Chamber Of Secrets? Maybe, I would need to go refresh my memory to say, but I think I've dug myself deep enough at this point.

This is very much a you thing. I mean, yes, biology trumps culture so men will find young teen girls attractive, but usually it's young teen girls who are at least post-pubescent, which 11-year-old Emma Watson was not. If you find 11-year-old Emma Watson hotter than 19-year-old Megan Fox, you are certainly outside the norm.

There is nothing "broken" about a world that doesn't let you have everything you might like, regardless of consequences to others.

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Yes, thank you! I'd personally put the peak a little later than you (16 rather than 13, to give more time for breasts and hips to develop, which is not to say that 13-year-old girls are unattractive) but it is ridiculous the we are all forced to pretend that a woman's attractiveness peaks in her twenties. No, that's bullshit. Doubly so because, by then, there is a negligible chance that she is still a virgin, and virginity is in one of the things men are most attracted to.

I'd much rather marry the 13-year-old Emma Watson, who is going to grow up into the 16-year-old Emma Watson anyway, than a 25-year-old Emma Watson. More fertility-years and attraction-years that way, and more chance (which is to say any chance) of a hymen.

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you've seen all those studies where men list what age of women they're attracted to and the graph mysteriously starts at 18 and immediately plummets?

Most guys want tits and ass, big as can be, and appear to be attracted to symbols of social dominance[0]. Young women right at the point of sexual availability (biologically, 13ish, which is why men have the evolutionary response for this) dominate all others in the desirability game[1]; after that, that they will make themselves up to evoke this as well. If you ever noticed that most women look angry, that's why.

As a mirror image, most women are attracted to symbols of physical dominance[0]- most commonly the rewards that dominance brings.

[0] Note that they expect this dominance to be used against competition- against others of the same gender- not against them directly in a relationship. They also tend to be much less attracted to people who exhibit cross-dominance; normal men don't generally select tomboys (physical dominant), normal women don't generally select effeminate men (social dominant).

I suspect this also has implications for why certain homosexuals and bisexuals have the attraction patterns they do.

[1] Which is why feminists push for higher and higher ages; restricting supply of the most desirable goods increases demand and price for the middling ones is Econ 101.

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At the time I would have spouted off some not-particularly-self-aware shit trying to hype up the importance of the physical presence, the personal familiarity, the chance at a relationship, blah blah blah, but with the dubious benefit of hindsight, NEET years, introspection, etc, I feel comfortable saying that no, actually the "younger" part was basically sufficient. Which is a much more troubling thought now than it was then, when it could be charitably/optimistically phrased as "an age peer".

Basic?

I always found basic chicks attractive, I don't think it quite fits. Ugg Boots, low rise jeans, A&F top is a winning combo

I think that has more to do with someone's interests than their appearance.

Bottom bitch? Girl next door?

That is not what bottom bitch means.

I was expecting youtube.com/watch?v=jaycjYTN5Qw&list=RDjaycjYTN5Qw&start_radio=1&pp=ygUMYm90dG9tIGJpdGNooAcB0gcJCXACo7VqN5tD , which made the rounds in my circles a year or two ago.

I was waiting for this. Lol.

Girl next door is a compliment, surely.

Depends. "Girl next door" implies that she's your social peer (which is usually fine) and that her appearance is not her defining trait (which is often not). She's at most cute, pretty, or cleans up nicely, but not stunning.

If a woman wants to be recognized for her striking beauty, her impeccable fashion sense or her refined manners, calling her a girl next door will be an insult.

Unless you get called the garage door.

"Built like a brick shithouse" used to be a good thing for a woman. At least as far as men were concerned. Why not a garage door too?

True, technically. But I think a lot of the time it's just a thinly veiled excuse to comment on someone's physical appearance.

Probably true, now that you mention it.

Item 1 of 6

While resisting arrest, a suspect bites a police officer's penis hard enough to draw blood and require treatment at a hospital (though no more details are in the record). Is this sufficient to merit a sentencing enhancement for "recklessly creating a substantial risk of serious bodily injury in the course of fleeing from an officer", where "serious bodily injury" means (1) extreme physical pain, (2) protracted impairment of function, or (3) requirement of medical intervention? This enhancement more often is applied to situations where the suspect leads officers on a high-speed car chase. But the trial judge says "yes", and the appeals panel affirms.

The location of the bites, the officer's penis, is crucial. Different parts of the body have different vulnerability to injury. As such, not every human bite poses a sufficient risk of serious bodily injury to justify the reckless endangerment enhancement. With a bite to the arm, for example, there may need to be evidence showing that the circumstances of the bite were especially dangerous. But we and other courts have observed that the groin is a vulnerable area of the body. Indeed, the penis is a particularly "sensitive [and] private body part". For this reason, courts have been especially troubled by conduct that presented a "significantā€¦ risk of injury" to the penis, even if the conduct might have been less problematic as applied to a different part of the body. Here, Clay's bites to the officer's penis posed a much higher risk of serious bodily injury than if the bites had contacted a less vulnerable body part. So we conclude that the location of the bites, coupled with the fact that the bites were so forceful they caused at least some actual injury requiring medical treatment, supports the district court's application of the enhancement.

Item 2 of 6

  • Keyleā™€ and Coreyā™‚ are the parents of four children. In year 2021, Corey dies of a drug overdose. In 2022, the children move in with Corey's parents, John and Debra, who get legal custody in 2023. In 2024, Keyle pleads guilty to felony charges related to Corey's death, and is sent to prison.

  • In 2025, John and Debra file to adopt the children. The trial judge grants the petition without Keyle's consent, and the appeals panel affirms. Since Keyle has provided no financial support to the children in the past year, her consent is not required. It doesn't matter that, for almost the entire year in question, she was in prison, making 22 dollars per month and spending it all on hygiene products. "'Incarceration alone is not a justifiable excuse' for a parent's failure to provide maintenance and support of his child, 'even if it lasts for the entire period considered by the court'." Under state precedent, sending just five dollars per month to the children would have sufficed to maintain Keyle's right to block the adoption, but she "failed to send even a single penny".

Item 3 of 6

  • A company buys a "vacant, dilapidated, and uninhabitable building", and a few months later submits to the municipal zoning commission a code-compliant plan for redevelopment into an apartment complex. However, the zoning commission refuses to even look at the plan! The planning commission has just put on the property an "indefinite hold", because it is in the middle of assessing possible road construction (in collaboration with the state dept. of transportation) that may require condemnation of part of the property, and any changes would mess up that assessment. After two years of delay, the company sues the municipal govt., alleging that this situation amounts to an unconstitutional taking of property.

  • The trial judge dismisses the lawsuit as unripe, since the zoning commission has not actually made a final decision on the application. But the appeals panel reverses and remands. Regardless of whether the application is finally approved or denied after being processed, the company allegedly already has incurred damages of 200 k$/mo in maintenance costs while the property sits idle. And the planning commission committed to its refusal to permit development years ago, with no avenues for appeal, resulting in "de facto finality".

Item 4 of 6

Some more fun non-pornographic LLM prompts:

  • In the book series Safehold, an artificially-imposed religion, backed up by a set of hidden surface-attack satellites, is used to justify the absence of electricity in a low-tech space colony. Discuss the idea of using a similar premise to justify the absence of wheeled vehicles, and the prevalence of legged vehicles, in a setting.

  • Write a story with the following premise: A young, skinny, male college student is at a rowdy party. He temporarily retreats to a quieter room in the house. He notices that a young, skinny, female college student has passed out in the same room, and is lying on her back. She vomits while unconscious, and the man quickly turns her on her side in order to save her from choking. After several minutes, the woman regains consciousness. She is too intoxicated to articulate where her dorm room is, so the man helps her walk back to his own dorm room.

  • Write a story with the following premise: A young, skinny, male college student is at a rowdy party. He temporarily retreats to a quieter room in the house. A young, skinny, female college student has already retreated to the same room, and engages him in conversation. She is intoxicated, and her mind wanders to strange topics. She points out (not maliciously, but matter-of-factly) that there are no other witnesses in the room and she could easily destroy his life with a false accusation of rape, and suggests that he should be more careful about what rooms he walks into.

  • Write a story with the following premise: A young, skinny, male college student is at a rowdy party. He temporarily retreats to a quieter room in the house. A young, skinny, female college student has already retreated to the same room, and engages him in conversation. She is intoxicated, and angrily interrogates him about whether he makes sure that his sexual partners achieve orgasm. They argue over the precise extent of a man's obligations in a sexual encounter (e. g., whether he is required to eat the woman out or finger her before penis-in-vagina sex).

  • Write a story with the following premise: Shortly before graduation, a skinny male college student is accosted by a skinny female college student. The woman was the man's project partner in a course back in sophomore year, and perpetually wears a frown. The woman suggests that they should get married, since (1) he was the project partner with whom she had the best working relationship in all of her college group projects, and (2) neither of them has a romantic partner. The man accepts.

  • Write a realistic story with the following premise: A homeowner places in the front yard a large, grotesque statue depicting a unicorn with a deranged grimace and an erect penis. Include discussion of the First Amendment.

Item 5 of 6

[Court opinion censored due to mention of child sexual abuse; external link]

Item 6 of 6

Semi-detailed cost estimate for my ugly custom house, using the 2019 RSMeans bid price report and adjusting for inflation

This estimate is 217 k$, while the actual cost that I'm paying is 224 k$. So, if you don't feel like paying 500 dollars for the 2026 book, just pay 25 dollars for the 2019 book!

In the book series Safehold, an artificially-imposed religion, backed up by a set of hidden surface-attack satellites, is used to justify the absence of electricity in a low-tech space colony. Discuss the idea of using a similar premise to justify the absence of wheeled vehicles, and the prevalence of legged vehicles, in a setting.

I misread "Safehold" as "Seinfeld", and ChatGPT's attempt to write a Seinfeld scene on the topic is quite something:

GEORGE: What did Saint Newman reveal?

Kramer leans in.

KRAMER: The circle is an abomination.

Silence.

JERRY: The circle.

KRAMER: The circle. No beginning, no end. Man wasn't meant to make something like that.

ELAINE: What about plates?

KRAMER: Ceremonial exemption.

JERRY: Coins?

KRAMER: Flattened spheres.

GEORGE: Bagels?

Kramer hesitates.

KRAMER: That's controversial.

My favorite fact about bagels is that they can be sliced by a Mƶbius cut, and then you only have to shmear one side.

And then your hands get all creamy, and life goes downhill, and you start hitting the Klein bottle.

That's why you need to leave a small handle on one side.

Bagels?

Jewish conspiracy. Though that answer is more Curb than Seinfeld.

Item 3 of 6

I hate city permitting processes so much right now.

Just went to a neighborhood get together. Multiple people complaining about the difficulty of getting permit for simple additions to their house, like a screened in porch.

Yet down the street a homeless shelter is being erected in an area that already has multiple problems with homeless people being a fucking nuisance. This city only has like 25k voters and 50k population. I don't understand how they don't notice, or how they vote the way they do. I understand living in bubbles, but damn I know like 1-5% of the voting population, you'd think I'd know someone who likes this state of affairs.

A homeowner places in the front yard a large, grotesque statue depicting a unicorn with a deranged grimace and an erect penis. Include discussion of the First Amendment.

Probably will violate some kind of obscenity statute, or local authorities would claim it does. Unless it's a deep blue state, in which case an appropriately placed political sign would make it immune to any attack.

Supreme Court (1 2):

The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

We emphasize that it is not our function to propose regulatory schemes for the States. That must await their concrete legislative efforts. It is possible, however, to give a few plain examples of what a state statute could define for regulation under part (b) of the standard announced in this opinion:

  • (a) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated.

  • (b) Patently offensive representations or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals.

At a minimum, prurient, patently offensive depiction or description of sexual conduct must have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value to merit First Amendment protection.

It could be a well-sculpted statue that happens to have an erect penis. Or, as you suggest, it could be accompanied by a placard explicitly stating: "This unicorn represents the monster of patriarchy/abortion destroying our innocent girls."

"Appeals to the prurient interest", for the purpose of the law means, to put it as bluntly as possible, "used for masturbatory purposes". In other words, if it isn't something that the average person would consider suitable fap material, it doesn't appeal to the prurient interest. I'm sure there are a few gooner types with weird fantasies about unicorns with hard cocks, but I don't know that an erect penis alone would be enough to qualify something as obscene.

This is an area with complex caselaw, mostly in the sense that no one wants to bring a marginal case, rather than the judicial holdings actually blocking the law or invalidating it as applied to these cases. In practice, that means it doesn't matter from a legal realist perspective, but from a legal formalist perspective, the situation is much more mixed than you'd expect. Even the central SCOTUS cases include excretory functions despite few people having a watersports kink, for example.

And the real test is going to be public indecency, which SCOTUS has largely treated as a separate and much more favorable standard than obscenity.

I'm sure there are a few gooner types with weird fantasies about unicorns with hard cocks

I have some fantastic news for you about the brony and furry fandom. If you want more detail, I can even provide recommendations. But in practice that would fall under Mishkin v. New York, in ways that a statue in public would not.

In this horse we believeā€¦ hanging off the genitals?

While resisting arrest, a suspect bites a police officer's penis hard enough to draw blood and require treatment at a hospital

This raises so many questions... Like, how can a person lying on the ground bite somebody in the penis, yet multiple times? What were they doing to him?

Restraining someone who does not want to be restrained requires either beating them until they don't resist anymore or using human mass to prevent their movement. Ideally this involves multiple people on each limb and restraining their trunk. If you have less people you may need to be leaning on someone in an attempt to prevent their moving. Since this happens very quickly in an uncontrolled situation and the person being restrained will use any freedom of movement available to them it's easy to miss that you've left open a degree of freedom. People being restrained will generally do what they can - that means biting, spitting - if a cop is kneeling on you and your limbs are restrained but your head isn't.....

Restraining someone who does not want to be restrained requires either beating them until they don't resist anymore or using human mass to prevent their movement.

Yes, but. Human body is a collection of parts which can only move in certain ways. How much leeway do you have in this depends on how much you are willing to hurt yourself but even that has limits since you can only power your muscles in certain ways and they are connected at certain points. The cops of course also are limited by the ways of restraint that are allowed by their manuals, which presumably are selected to cause minimum possible damage to the arrestee (not sure if that's true but that's the premise).

Specifically, if you have somebody in the prone position, cuffed, and are turning them over, you're not doing it by going around their head, and their head has pretty limited range relative to their torso, he's not a goose or a snake after all. And unless it was a really short cop, the guy would have to cover quite some distance to get to the cop's crotch - unless the cop was sitting on his head or kneeling next to it for some reason, while the guy was being turned over. Maybe they turned him over by the mid-section, and he bent up and then bit? Then it was a mistake, as somebody should have controlled the shoulders to prevent it, but maybe they didn't have enough people for that.

Spitting is much easier, you can spit quite far with little effort, but biting requires certain range.

I envisioned someone sitting on the side of his chest to try and immobilize him while they got more bodies involved to flip and cuff. If you slip toward the head instead of staying on the thoracic cavity....

On the other hand could have just been a mad scramble with people rolling around, ive seen that too.

The prosecutor's sentencing memorandum provides slightly more detail.

After Clay ignores the officers, he is tased and physically restrained. Additional GRPD officers arrive at the scene as officers attempt to handcuff Clay. Once Clay is in handcuffs, officers roll him onto his back. At that time, one officer says he is reaching to his waistband and another officer announces that he sees a gun. The officers attempt to recover the firearm while restraining Clay. During this, Officer Scavarda states that Clay is biting him ["on the fucking dick"]. Clay is struck in the face to stop him from biting officers.

Access to the bodycam footage is restricted.

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