domain:worksinprogress.co
HereAndGone
2m ago
I disagree with (1) his huffing and puffing over me regarding his Tidus as a fantasy novel rather than Real Science (2) warmed-over 19th century anthropology - others in the comments have pointed out disagreement with his Just So story of How It All Happened.
He seems very put out that I'm not treating his Giant Work Of Staggering Genius (it's going to be a book, you know!) with a seemly and proper level of reverence, but rather that I'm mocking it (you know, being petulant and sarcastic and all the limitations of my viewpoint, due to the womanly faults of not having a brain but big tiddies instead).
Me and Belloc are over here laughing about "oh really, the Nordic Man myth again?"
NunoSempere
3m ago
Lol :).
But it's good news though. From an expanded brief I post on Mondays:
Tesla is aiming to produce its own (electrical) transformers. This could mitigate a possible bottleneck in the large-scale upgrade of the US electrical grid that would be needed to accommodate a large growth in demand due to AI datacenter buildout—but it might also increase resilience to large solar flares, a risk that we at Sentinel have been tracking in the background. However, we don’t see signs at this time that Tesla aims to produce any of the large power transformers (LPTs; or any newer designs, for that matter) that could fail in the event of a large solar event and are critical for grid operation; more than 80% of such transformers are imported, “with lead times of up to five years,” according to Siemens.
HereAndGone
6m ago
The romanticization of biker gangs traveled far thanks to the interwoven cross-section of 1960s counterculture that helped popularize it. Groups of American ruffian drug traffickers on two-wheeled transport, sexual revolutionaries, and psychedelic entrepreneurs found commonality in their love of drugs and rebellion to the Man.
Even before the 60s, see the Marlon Brando movie The Wild One from 1953, based on a story allegedly based on a true incident. See the famous quote from the movie.
The film's screenplay was based on Frank Rooney's short story "Cyclists' Raid", published in the January 1951 Harper's Magazine and anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 1952. Rooney's story was inspired by sensationalistic media coverage of an American Motorcyclist Association motorcycle rally that got out of hand on the Fourth of July weekend in 1947 in Hollister, California. The overcrowding, drinking and street stunting were given national attention in the July 21, 1947, issue of Life, with a possibly staged photograph of a wild drunken man on a motorcycle. The events, conflated with the newspaper and magazine reports, Rooney's short story, and the film The Wild One are part of the legend of the Hollister riot.
So post-Second World War veterans returned home, more disposable income and better conditions in the 50s, a rise in interest in all kinds of communal activities, leading to a lot of guys getting interested in motorbikes as a hobby and club activity, along with a bunch of guys who would always be the type to be rule-breakers involved in motorbiking, and the tension between 'back to normie society and its rules after living in a different environment during wartime' and 'sliding into involvement with criminality' leading to, as you say, the romantic view of the guys living outside strict rules of conventional society in their own replacement culture as modern-day pioneers.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
9m ago
I'm still kind of figuring out what exactly I like/want/need in a bike
Do you want a road bike (or the bastard cousin, a tri bike, which you won't be able to use in many group rides if you want to join a club), a hybrid, a mountain bike, or a casual cruiser?
how to go about finding it.
If you want a semi high-end road bike from a few years ago at a discounted price, CL/FB marketplace/etc. are the places to look. If you are still fairly new to the cycling world, you won't even believe the amount of money some cyclists pour into a bike every 2-4 years to have the newest, latest, greatest, most hyped bike. Some of them will then dump their older bikes for far less than new. Obviously many miles on some, but generally well-maintained.
Goodguy
16m ago
Hopefully, figure out how to not be reduced to rubber-stamping a yearly budgetary bill larded up to the gills. But they probably don't have much incentive to do that.
CrispyFriedBarnacles
18m ago
This is a really great post, so thank you.
Way, way, way back in the early 2000s, when I was still in the game industry, I got really fascinated by speedrun videos and was collecting them early on. Partially this was a pragmatic matter - before youtube and longplays, it was actually really hard to get footage of different games, so as game maker, the early 2000s crop of speedrun videos actually represented an early useful repository of game footage. Hard to imagine now, given how much footage is trivially available on youtube, but it was definitely an issue at the time. But also, as a game designer, I think there was something very clarifying about watching the process of players decompose your game from the fiction you wanted to portray into the actual rules underneath your fiction.
I also watched the process of academic game studies come into being during that time as well (I have a bunch of good friends in the space), and comparing that evolution to your description of Summoning Salt is both instructive and pretty depressing. I feel like Summoning Salt shows what one version of the academic study of games could have been like if the field hadn't been completely swallowed up by a lot of current stereotypical academic pathologies. I've long admired his videos.
crushedoranges
Can Marx explain the used panties market?
20m ago
Congress is reduced to rubber-stamping a yearly budgetary bill larded up to the gills: what else are they going to do with their free time?
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
20m ago
Two months ago I decided to take up bicycling. Thanks for the advice everyone. After determining that as my learned friend @MollieTheMare indicated, the Pacific mountain bike I'd come into was kind of a piece of shit, I went hunting around for other bicycles I could borrow from people, and found myself with a menagerie of old bikes that had been sitting in garages for years or decades now sitting in my garage and being fixed up and ridden around my neighborhood. I've got a 90s Trek hybrid for girls, a 2012ish Trek hybrid for men, a remake Schwinn cruiser, and a Jamis road bike from the 2000s that I quite like but have to keep fiddling with to make work for me because it's actually the wrong size. Eventually I'm going to return all but maybe one of them to their original owners. I'm still kind of figuring out what exactly I like/want/need in a bike, and how to go about finding it.
So cycling mottizens, consider this the "What are you riding?" thread, or the "What bike would you advise someone to buy?" thread. I'm curious what the fine people of this place think is a good bike.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
24m ago
The problem is the format itself. It’s basically a live podcast, with a host that tells bad jokes, a ton of padding, and set dressing because for some reason it is being put on TV instead of on the radio or in a podcast. And in that vein, its competition has huge advantages— cheaper format, not being bound to a time slot, cheaper hosts, no need for sets, costumes, or live music. Any decent comedian could do exactly what Kimmel and Colbert were doing at 1/10 or less the cost, and I don’t think the format of late night comedy shows makes sense.
DoctorMonarch
♬We're so happy that we live in 1800's Alabama 'cause it's sunny and there is no crime!♬
25m ago
· Edited 21m ago
Sounds familiar, check with /r/rational ? Also, aside from spacebattles or sufficientvelocity it could have fanfiction- any chance this guy was a pony, ninja or wizard? Might want to slog through https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheSingularity
DoctorMonarch
♬We're so happy that we live in 1800's Alabama 'cause it's sunny and there is no crime!♬
29m ago
Summer 2010 I decided that after done with everything for the day, I'd to listen to two new-to-me metal albums a day, drink yuengling, play 2-3 hours of Angband until I got good. I didn't get good, but I don't regret that wind down ritual.
Totalitarianit
31m ago
The primary distinction for me is not between good and evil, or purity and corruption, but between the ensouled and the soulless. The indifference with which this concept is often treated is simply more proof to me that the distinction has, in fact, latched onto something real. Undoubtedly, many of my enemies and I walk the same path; and conversely, anyone on my "side" who lacks the requisite sense of aesthetics is an ally of convenience only, and not someone who could be counted on to genuinely relieve me of my loneliness.
The wise philosopher, Shoe0nhead once said, "Personally, I'd rather live in a world full of Charlie Kirks who would sit down and debate than a world full of people who agree with me but would murder people who don't."
gorge
41m ago
John Stewart (in his prime), John Oliver, Nikole Hannah Jones, David Hogg .... and historically ... MLK....
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
44m ago
They weren’t celebrating on mainstream outlets though. Pretty sure Johnny Carson did not make a “lol Mansons shot a deserving pig” joke or even make a bacon reference. Weirdos on the fringe are going to weirdo. But in our moment, especially considering how relatively stable our country actually is, the fact that a mainstream TV show and mainstream news and movie/tv stars and musicians are doing this is simply not what I’d call a fringe movement.
Primaprimaprima
Aliquid stat pro aliquo
46m ago
Name whoever you want, I doubt it will change anything.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
47m ago
Linda Sarsour, perhaps?
I wouldn't vote for a resolution honoring anyone. I think Congress should focus on legislating, not on assessing the worth of individuals and voting on whether to honor them or not.
I have even more reason to dislike these resolutions given that they allow either side of the left/right political divide to attempt gotcha political moves to put their opponents into traps. For example: "Here's this person who died, you would have to be a ghoul not to vote to honor them! You're not a ghoul, are you???".
DiscourseMagnus
49m ago
I'm not going to submit my aunt or my cousin to that CharliesMurders website
It's down anyway. Pretty sure it's been down now longer than it was up.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
50m ago
I accidentally happened to log onto facebook yesterday. Approximately half the posts I saw that were from real humans I know were being assholes about the murder - and this is after I aggressively unfollowed everyone who posted about politics when I last used the site a few years ago.
I'm not going to submit my aunt or my cousin to that CharliesMurders website, but I wonder how many people had similar experiences.
DiscourseMagnus
50m ago
Well, good to know, I guess, that when leftists get mad at people proposing hypotheticals like "would you say the n-word to prevent an asteroid from hitting the Earth and killing all life", they aren't mad because they think the hypothetical is contrived, they're mad because they legitimately deontologically believe that they should leave that particular trolley lever alone.
DiscourseMagnus
54m ago
Okay, that's actually a pretty valuable data point as I had in fact heard of her and was aware of her significance.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
56m ago
That portion of the left looks an awful lot like the right-wing militia kooks from the 90's, except without the fed infiltration, self-policing, or actually-existing inciting incidents.
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
57m ago
What would be the criteria to be "like Kirk"? A figure who is seen as inspirational by many members of the base and a dangerous populist agitator by most in the opposite party, not in elected office but close to part of the upper brass, and involved in fundraising? I'm not sure who would meet these criteria on the Dem side, maybe some BLM leader?
Pulpachair
57m ago
The entirety of the far left in the US is smaller than the lizardman constant when compared to the entire populace, so it’s hard to say. Honestly, it may have been limited to just some of the extreme radicals and nutters, but it wasn’t nonexistent.
Bernadine Dohrn of the Weatherman Underground (now a law professor with some influence on Barack Obama when he was starting his career) praised the murders. There were groups of supporters at the trial who shaved their heads and drew X on their foreheads as signs of support.
Some headlines from this week:
Geopolitics
United States
Ex-Sailor Sentenced to 12 Years in Terror Plot Targeting Naval Station Great Lakes
The Rest of the Americas
Gangs kill over 40 in Haiti's Arcahaïe as local authorities call for reinforcements
Europe
Denmark to buy $9B air defense systems as tensions with Russia grow
Middle East
"A year after Israel's pager attacks in Lebanon, survivors rebuild". Just a really funny headline
Iran
Israel strikes Yemen's Hodeidah Port twelve times after Houthi attack on Israeli airport, claiming it was used by the Houthis for weapons transfers from Iran.
A former U.S. Navy sailor, Xuanyu Harry Pang, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for plotting a terrorist attack at Naval Station Great Lakes and attempting to assist the Iranian government in smuggling radioactive materials into the U.S. for a dirty bomb. Pang, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to destroy national defense premises, conducted surveillance on the base and sought maximum destructive locations in Chicago. The judge highlighted the profound betrayal by a service member against his fellow sailors, noting the potential catastrophic consequences of Pang's plans.
Gaza
Gaza hit by telecoms blackout as Israeli tanks and infantry advance
Israeli finance minister describes plans to turn Gaza into a 'real estate bonanza' as bombs hammer the enclave
More than 10% of Gaza’s population has been killed or injured, former Israeli military chief says
Yemen
Asia
SoftBank openai deal delayed
18 members of the Pakistani security forces were killed this week. Pakistan suspects Afghanistan-backed terrorists.
North Korea's Kim Jong Un oversees drone test, and approved a plan to further strengthen unmanned aerial vehicle
Kim Jong Un declares AI military drone development a ‘top priority’
Chinese Coast Guard: "Philippine boat deliberately collides with Chinese coast guard vessel despite warnings, responsibility for the collision lies entirely with the Philippines."
India/Pakistan
Pakistan hard hit this moonson
India's Modi calls for peace in Manipur, launches projects worth nearly $1 billion. Though the reception wasn't uniformly good though.
Africa
Sudan is currently experiencing the world's largest displacement crisis, with over 30.4 million people requiring assistance. The crisis has resulted in alarming rates of malnutrition
Libya: More Than 100 Sudanese Refugees Dead or Missing in Shipwrecks Off Libya
Sudan: Rebel drone strike kill dozens.
Biorisks
DR Congo begins vaccinating against new Ebola outbreak
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