domain:eigenrobot.substack.com
RegularlyExpressed
48m ago
Lirael is definitely the best book in the original series. She's the most engaging protagonist and I really enjoy her relationship with the dog. I also liked reading about the society of the Clayr.
I've only read the original trilogy but I've bought the newer books - pretty excited to start them!
Exotic_cetacean
Aesthetics over ethics
51m ago
Is this right? Fifteen books, ranging from #1-6?
Six main novels, yes. I kind of forgot how many side stories are there, maybe I should read them.
The Book of the New Sun?
I recall reading the first book many moons ago, but I didn't read further. My written down impressions from back then are mostly complaining about overloaded, opaque prose, funnily enough. My taste might have changed, but I would still say that the style is quite different
Does this have an audiobook, and is the narration any good?
It does.
is the narration any good?
No. Though I'm not a fan of fiction audiobooks in the first place
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
54m ago
A lot of acts with queer themes did well. The UK fact did badly because that guy just couldn't sing.
His profile says banned on request, people do it from time to time if they need to spend more time away from the community for whatever reason (like real life work).
I’m sure he’ll be back.
OliveTapenade
4hr ago
I wonder if it's partly because something like Eurovision requires a level of whimsy or self-deprecation that Americans can't manage?
I have a lot of fondness for Americans, but they do undoubtedly take themselves very seriously - perhaps too seriously for something like Eurovision. If I imagine an American Eurovision, America can do the excess and the glamour and the high-budget-yet-low-taste glitter of it all, but there has to be this subtle element of self-mockery in it, of realising that the whole thing is silly and yet embracing it anyway.
DradisPing
2hr ago
Even before it wasn't quite the same. Eurovision contestants are typically born and raised in that country. Sure they've often done some travelling but they have lifelong links.
College football players often didn't have any link to the college or state before they got the scholarship.
theincompetencetheorist
3hr ago
Or the televotes result is a disorganized majority that is tired of the agenda that shove politics in their face by what is en vogue for the terminally online, they just come for the entertainment and music. Because if you look at the UK televote votes. They received 0 points for almost a gay live show. And Israel received more televote points than the LGBTQIA+ winner. So in my mind, people simply didn't give a fuck and voted for the act they liked the best.
Representing Ireland is a (sigh) non-binary singer-songwriter calling herself (sigh) Bambie Thug. Her* decision to participate was controversial, with many figures in Ireland's music scene likening her to a scab worker for not honouring the Eurovision boycott in protest of Israel's participation. She has given multiple interviews defending herself and insisting that she is acting in accordance with her values. I believe I read somewhere that she claimed she was originally planning to wear a dress with the word "ceasefire" or something to that effect emblazoned on it in ogham (am ancient Irish script) but the Eurovision people made her wear something else.
*Don't care.
Primaprimaprima
Bigfoot is an interdimensional being
1hr ago
What happened to @ymeskhout?
BahRamYou
8hr ago
We do have the Miss America Pageant, but very few people really care about that anymore. I think with modern communications and moving around, there just isn't as much jingoism between US states anymore.
We might be more interested in an intra-North America competition. Doing it between countries really amps up the jingoism, like the Olympics and World Cup. It would be fun to see the US go up against Cuba in a song contest. Not sure how you'd make it fair, though...
orthoxerox
I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink
2hr ago
This was one of the most stereotypically American things I've read.
DradisPing
5hr ago
You might want to check out "Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy" which is a remaster of the various GTA3 games. They did AI upsampling so there are some odd errors like a big nut above a hardware store turning into a donut.
Saints Row 2 - 4 are less serious GTA knock offs. Also check out the Just Cause series, skip the first.
hanikrummihundursvin
23hr ago
Coordinated minority>Disorganized majority
You can vote more than once from the same number. Up to 20 times or something. Any geopolitically motivated adult can outdo a kid who votes once with the permission of mom and dad.
You could say the same for opponents of Israel, they all get 20 votes. But the difference is that they have no singular target to back. And they are still only changing the points on a ladder of 1-12. So even if they all vote for the same country, giving it 12 points, Israel can just run up behind them and claim 11.
Aside from all of that, I don't think winning will do Israel any propaganda favors, although it would be funny. So whilst a 'respectable' middle of the pack outcome might be on the cards for Israel, you never know with how unhinged and rabid philosemites/zionists are and how honest or not the Eurovision voting is counted and which way the minds of the jurors sway. The jurors might hope for a politically neutral result, but too many 6-7 pointers for Israel could make things interesting.
That being said, Eurovision is a purely news cycle driven thing. It doesn't matter in any sense outside of that.
hydroacetylene
21hr ago
I have long said that the eurovision song contest needs to be imported to the USA. We need an outlet for regionalist jingoism and dumb arguing and snark. We need something to get politics notionally out of the news. I need another opportunity to insistently call Taylor Swift 'Travis Kelce's girlfriend' because football is more notable.
MaiqTheTrue
Zensunni Wanderer
3hr ago
That’s not surprising. Games are on streaming services and rarely on network TV. Going to a ballgame is expensive for families— somewhere between 150-200 dollars to attend a game and get a snack and a drink. Even youth baseball is harder to access, it’s mostly select teams after first or second grade. All of this means kids aren’t watching as much baseball as they used to.
atelier
Jimmys: unrustled
20hr ago
We have a perfectly cromulent outlet for regionalist jingoism, college football. At least until the TV money got large enough to drive the bus with conference consolidation and transfers becoming a whole lot closer to free agency.
ace
6hr ago
This comment is unhinged. I'm reminded of the quote (paraphrasing) "You condemn a black-and-white morality as having only two colors; but you replace it with grey, which is only one."
To my knowledge, the Obama administration only sought the torture and execution of one US citizen on political grounds (Snowden). I'm quite happy to deny "moral community" to the nation's enemies, which is why I drew the line at US citizens.
Putin's Russia is wildly different. Take for instance Trump's election while Obama was in power. How does that fit into "Power suffers no competitors"?
hydroacetylene
12hr ago
No, the country music audience likes baseball. Flyover whites and assimilated hispanics go to baseball games all the time.
Baseball is declining, and that's partly because there's too many games for anyone to watch all of them, except for the most hardcore fans ever or those who have some professional reasons(eg local entertainment newscasters). This leads to few people even trying, which makes baseball less lucrative. But ticket sales remain strong so that teams are able to stay above water.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
15hr ago
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
22hr ago
The actual instability in many continental (ie. usually PR-using) countries is less due to the small parties (they're often easy to ignore - they're small!) and more because there are major parties that are politically toxic (due to being extreme right or extreme left, or separatists) and thus basically almost automatically out of the government, which thus forces the rest of the parties into ideologically amorphous, unstable coalitions, or alternatively leads o the creation of large ideologically amorphous, unstable "system parties" (like the Italian Christian Democrats, the hegemonic party due to the main opposition being the Communists who were kept out of the government) where political barons bring down governments and cut each other down due to byzantine political machinations or simply due to spite.
The reason why those parties exist is because there are or were deeper systemic factors in those countries leading to large portions of population choosing such extreme or separatist parties. The Weimar Republic was not unstable because of its electoral system but simply because huge portions of the German population distrusted democracy and supported antidemocratic parties like the Communist, Nazis and the DNVP. If unstable countries were using FPTP, the same factors would just express themselves otherwise; the extreme left and right would eventually affect and radicalize the mainstream parties, and separatist/ethnic parties are usually concentrated enough to elect MPs even in FPTP systems.
The main FPTP-using countries, ie. Anglo countries, have been stable because they have been wealthy and have had longlasting liberal democratic cultures with powerful mechanisms encouraging stability. Nevertheless, even they've seen increasing destabilization lately, and that destabilization has then channeled itself in different ways, so you have the Trump presidency, Corbyn leadership in Labour and the Brexit.
CanofWorms
5hr ago
Golf, housecleaning, beers with the fellas, a long hike with my dog. Cooking a good meal.
The people who all share the same name by a coincidence, and that name is 😷✊🏿🇺🇦🇵🇸
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