Another personal blog

How do you know that ? (Unmute !)

Transcript:

Man (filming): uhhh who did you say did the electrical work?

Old lady: oh, that would be my nephew Thomas, he’s very handy

Man: yeah, uh, what year did his house burn down?

Old lady: that would be about two years ag- how did you know the house burned down???

Man: had a feeling— video cuts off

Vídeo description: the camera pans over a mess of wires connected haphazardly

one of my favorite this american life segments of late is about the people who played orchestra pit for phantom of the opera on broadway and how, like, a sizeable majority of them had literally been playing the show since it opened in 1988 (on broadway. I know it opened in 86 on the west end, you random pedants, but I am specifically talking about broadway musicians) because their contracts stipulated that they'd have jobs throughout the show's entire run... but nobody anticipated that phantom would become the longest-running broadway show of all time.

and none of these people wanted to walk away from a guaranteed job, so very few of them ever quit. they just kept doing the same show eight nights a week... for twenty or thirty years... and by the time it finally closed last year most of these musicians (who had been working together for DECADES) hated each other and really really fucking loathed phantom. I can't stop thinking about it. it's indescribably hellish to imagine but also the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life.

can you imagine.

[ID: excerpt from an article reading: One of my favorite stories, which should drive anyone who has every played in a band crazy-- there’s this bassoon player who has sat next to the same clarinet player since 1988. She’s convinced he plays half a note4 flat on every note he’s every played. He denies this. /]

I am of two minds about the whole American Civil Religion thing. On one hand, I am always in favor of people doing theological analysis of ostensibly secular things. On the other hand, it seems like a framework geared to produce foregone conclusions.

I think it's interesting when you take a wider view of it as syncretic

ok looking through my passport book

quote from the constituion. Part of american mythology is classical liberal political philosophy

quote from martin luther king. Civil rights movement was a later thing that got adopted

a couple presidents. OK here's one i think is interesting. LBJ.

The frontier-based identity, plus space! the final frontier! The last page of my passport book is a view of the earth from some orbit around the moon. The space cult is its whole own thing

i was also hoping to find some quote representative of the uh consumer cult, idk what to call it. Part of its mythology is "Atlas Shrugged", part of it is the Kitchen Debate.

These are all related, but not really the same thing, and like... I meet people who are clearly a social justice warrior, or a space enthusaist, or an objectivist, you know? THey have their own adherents, their own documents.

I"m using terms like "space cult" using the definition of "cult" as system of veneration of certain objects or symbols. I think of it as something with its own adherents, mythology, and things they consider sacred, criticism of these things being blasphemy. Sometimes adherents make it to govt, like Alan Greenspan going from discussions at Ayn Rand's house to washington. Sometimes ppl in govt just feel like they have to appease them, like Nixon saying on one of his tapes, "We are going to be positive on space. Nobody is going to be against us if we go forward in space, and a few will be for us because we do." The "official" side like federal holidays is some kind of negotiation between all of them, and just as often they're at odds with each other.

it's even more of a religion in the courts, where we have a paucity of information about what the Constitution was even supposed to mean with most private recollections of it devoted to the social rather than the philosophical order of what was being discussed. There's Madison's notes, but he edited them after the Constitutional Congress so who knows, and we largely dealt with our lack of knowledge through strong-willed Supreme Court Justices -- the first two going down as "wise", John Marshall and Joseph Story, with Roger Taney succeeding them as fools. One of our best sources on what the founders considered to be "rights" comes from a random opinion from George Washingtons nephew on the rights of out-of-staters to hunt clams in a manner in which state residents could clam. And so, we often turn to obsequious regard for the Federalist Papers.

This way was the only ship we had and by god we are gonna sail it all the way to the stars or the bottom of the sea, we ain't giving up on it now.

Fingers crossed

Compiling these in a reblog

Giving these untrained individuals cluster rockets.

This reblog thread is gonna get long

Secondaries

Post is becoming long (as predicted).

You know i had to design a mech too.

Pinpoint accuracy

ACME core

Like an airbrust but ground

Anti weapon, pro squishy bits.

Alternative CC measures

Mule

Hit and run in that order

Crowdpleaser.

Height advantage

I want my space lightning bolt

Thumb strain from the post length

Soften them first

Remember to reload your melee

Funky stratagems

One handed primary options

Walking and running

Making a getaway

Warm up sketch of Totally Not Douglas Macarthur as a sensei in Blue Archive

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a slapping,

As of some one gently flapping, flapping at my chamber door.

“’Tis some fairy,” I muttered, “slapping at my chamber door—

            Only this and nothing more.”

Quoth the walrus, "Are you sure?"

    Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a slide and stutter,

In there stepped a stately Walrus of the icy days of yore;

    Not the least obeisance made he; not my broken window stayed he;

    But, with mien of gourd or guppy, plopped before my chamber door—

Plopped beneath a bust of Samus just above my chamber door—

            Plopped, and sat, and nothing more.

    Then this spessartine beast beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of its countenance and snort,

    “Though thy snout be halved and hairy, thou,” I said, “art sure no weary,

    Shifty strange and ancient Fairy wandering from the Seelie court—

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Fae's irradiant court!”

            Quoth the Walrus “Are you sure?”

    Much I marvelled this ungainly pinniped's discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;

    For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

    Ever yet was cursed with seeing beast upon this second floor—

Fae or beast beneath the sculptured bust upon this second floor,

            With such threat as “Are you sure?”

    But the Walrus, sitting lonely by the placid bust, spoke only

That one phrase, as if his soul in that one phrase he did outpour.

    Nothing farther then he uttered—not a whisker then he fluttered—

    Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—

On the morrow he will leave me, as the Fae have flown before.”

            Then the beast said “Are you sure?”

    Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store

    Caught from some unfit zoo keeper whom precarious Procedure

    Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—

Till the dirges of his Hope that undetermined burden bore

            Of ‘Are you—are you sure’.”

    But the Walrus still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,

Straight I wheeled a gamer seat in front of beast, and bust and door;

    Then, upon the pleather sinking, I betook myself to linking

    Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous beast of yore—

What this strange, unsightly, shifty, stout, and ominous beast of yore

            Meant in growling “Are you sure?”

    This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the beast whose pearly tusks now took up half my bedroom floor;

    This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

    On the cushion’s pleather lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,

But whose pleather-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,

Fae shall press, ah, I'm unsure!

    Then, methought, the air grew sour, perfumed like a plant devoured

Minced by Seelie folk whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

    “Wretch,” I cried, “thy court hath sent thee—by these fairies thou hast called me

    Desperate—desperate and resentful for my memories of the Fae;

Stop, oh stop this kind resplendence and deter my mind's decay!”

            Quoth the Walrus “Are you sure?”

    “Fiendish!” said I, “thing of fairies!—fiendish still, if climbed or carried!—

Whether Trickster sent, or whether tracker-hunted from your shore,

    Grandiose yet all unguarded, in this zoo-less land enchanted—

    In this home by Fairies haunted—tell me truly, I implore—

How then—how then did you enter here?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”

            Quoth the Walrus “Are you sure?”

    “Fiendish!” said I, “thing of fairies!—fiendish still, if climbed or carried!

By that stardust that bursts above us—by that court we both wish for—

    Tell this soul with questions laden how, if not Fae navigation,

    Did you climb the steep embankment up onto my second floor—

Climb this old and ramshackle wall with flippers to my second floor?”

            Quoth the Walrus “Are you sure?”

    “Be that phrase our sign of parting, beast and fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—

“Get thee back into the tricking and the Fae’s irradiant court!

    Leave no imprint as a token of that lie thy heft hath portioned!

    Leave my sanity's corrosion!—quit the bust above my door!

Take thy tusk from out my heart, and take thy form from off my floor!”

            Quoth the Walrus “Are you sure?”

    And the Walrus, barely fitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

By the saddened bust of Samus just above my chamber door;

    And his whiskers have the gleaming of a fairy’s wings convening,

    And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And this beast from out my dwelling that lies gloating on the floor

            Can't be lifted—I am sure!

a garbage man ran out of the bushes in front of my car, which is fine because I’m used to deer on that road and was already driving carefully, but I’m so used to deer that instead of like, watching the truck to see if he was crossing again I watched the bushes he’d come from in case there were like. 1-2 smaller, frailer garbage men following him I guess.

I was driving home today and a deer jumped out in front of my car and surprised me and this post instantly flashed through my mind (I saw it a while back and it was really funny) which is a good thing because I'm *not* used to deer, so when I remembered "1-2 smaller frailer garbage men" I came to a complete stop and *didn't* hit the second deer.

So, thanks!

Shit man, this wizard war is fucked. I just saw a guy clap his hands together and say "the ten hells" or some similar shit, and every one around him turned inside out, had their tibia explode and then disappeared. The camera didn't even go onto him, that's how common shit like this is. My ass is casting frostbite and level 2 poison. I think I just heard "power word:scrunch" two groups over. I gotta get the fuck outta here.

Meal concept: mimic of holding. Have characters open a chest at the end of a supposedly dangerous area where there's been no danger and then just have them appear in like a procedurally generated space, taking area damage from strangley acrid air, and just see how long they're trapped there

where is that renaissance painting with those two fellers and a giant fucking random skull on the floor that looks like it was accidentally stretched out in photoshop

THANK YOU

somebody please explain

Someone once told me it’s like that because it was designed to be hung in a stairwell so the skull pops out as you walk past.

…I guess it works but you have to be at a pretty sharp angle

There was a whole trend at one point where artists would include something in their paintings (usually a skull, for whatever reason) that’s super distorted in just the right way so that it looks normal if you hold the painting up to a convex/concave mirror. I have absolutely no idea why. But I think that’s what’s going on here.

In case anyone’s curious, here’s what it looks like when you walk past it irl:

It does have a 3D effect to it! It’s pretty neat, guess it would be even more impressive to people from the 14th century.

honestly, people just looking at the skull are missing the real deal here

You can read any implied text you see in this thing, even the book, that’s how detailed it is. Look at the painting on those letters!

jesus christ you’re just showing off now, Hans!

HANS OH MY GOD

anyway, the skull apparently had some meaning about the transcendence of death, you can only see it clearly when you can’t see the world clearly and vice versa, but man, I’m all about the detail in this guy’s shit

No, I think you’re missing the real deal here

as an art historian, i think this is the best post on tumblr

Things my extremely Italian physics professor has said:

“If you are walking in the woods nearby Chernobyl, you will probably be fine. But if you pick something up off the ground and eat it, you will die of radiation poisoning. Of course you may die if you eat things from the ground in other places, also, but likely not of radiation.”

“Unfortunately there is nothing I can teach you that will prevent you dying if there is on your house a hydrogen bomb. That is a politician problem. If any of you are president later, please do not hydrogen bomb my house.”

“Radioactivity could perhaps be used by terrorists, but it has not yet. Likely this is because terrorists do not study much physics.”

“Why is it that physics graduate students cannot make a nuclear bomb? It is not that they do not want to. They simply have not the money to buy the materials. Or anything else.”

i feel like if you're going to include a "blease don't use my game to play as cops or the FBI" or whatever disclaimer in your game, you ought to put it in the store description as well, so i know that before giving you money

anyway I picked up liminal horror

"Liminal Horror is written to be played as normal people with little power, and not as law enforcement (cops, FBI, military) or those with institutional power (politicians, extremely wealthy individuals, etc.). The themes inherent in playing as extensions of those types of systems are problematic, exploitative, and uninteresting. Reframing as people interested in the paranatural, people in over their heads, journalists, writers, etc., is a more fruitful outlet. By the time these stories begin, the systems of power that should have protected the Investigators have already failed."

The X-Files ran for nine fucking seasons, I don't think playing as FBI agents investigating the supernatural is "uninteresting."

oh fuck yes it's got a character option for playing somebody who got super into QAnon

God, the sooner this fad of RPGs telling me what left-wing political themes I'm supposed to put in the game ends, the better.

Not because I don't like left-wing themes but because everybody is so bloody bad at it.

In terms of this specifically, like, have this writer read some John Le Carre novels. See how much "institutional power" helps the protagonist of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Read Len Deighton. Watch The Sandbaggers. Watch, as OP points out, the X Files, which is not even a politically aware TV series but still sees our FBI heroes ambushed, or hung out to dry, or have their results buried by their bosses, or have antagonistic characters pull rank to stop them from doing something important.

The fact that you're officially part of an institution doesn't mean the institution has your back, for crying out loud. This fact is an *incredibly* rich thematic vein to mine for a horror game.

The original edition of Delta Green wasn't politically tin-eared like this but it always bugged me that the official setting assumption was that Delta Green was an illegal underground conspiracy. I always felt like that made things *less* dangerous for the agents. I'd rather play a game where Catbert from HR has some issues with the way you talked about those Deep One hybrids and the Nyarlathotep worshipping senator has a security clearance and every right to look at your mission reports and you're being assigned to someone's pet project which is being overtly set up to fail by their departmental enemies.

Letting the Delta Green agents off the hook from worrying about that stuff always kind of rubbed me the wrong way, seemed to be letting the PCs off too easy.

(Yes I know about the Laundry Files RPG)

the new edition of paranoia says you're not allowed to play if you have the wrong politics.

fucking paranoia. gonna say "actually, we're going to override the GM who we repeatedly emphasize as being omnipotent and eternally right and entitled to carry out his every whim and caprice on the hapless players. it doesn't matter what you at the table want more than the gm. it does matter what we want from them though."

so I've talked before about how media culture revolves around conspicuous consumption nowadays, that the important thing about the stuff you like is not what it is but what it says about you. what's mostly happening here I think, is that in "indie" spaces where there's low barriers to entry, lots of creators, and not much money, this is also how the designers approach it. people often view their own work primarily through the lens of what it says about them, and how it positions them socially within the nearly-flat bottom of the industry

these didactic moralizing asides that convey lessons no reader needs except those who will bounce off their presentation format are not there for the sake of the game but to burnish the writer's reputation in community discourse, and to insulate them from the perpetual infighting about games leading innocents into perdition due to a lack of moral instruction, or being responsible for serious harms due to a lack of adequate safety measures for their dangerous contents, or pandering to degenerates with evil beliefs.

whatever the importance of these as actual problems the "solutions" are nothing of the sort, because this discourse happens entirely among people who don't need any of this white-knuckled handholding, who are deeply incurious about measuring the scope of these problems or learning what the supposed beneficiaries think they should be doing. these topics only come into play as phantasmagoric conjurations of the anxieties of players and developers who feel a formless malaise about the "state of the industry" and are very concerned about being fingered by their social circle, none of whom benefit directly from this stuff, as Part of the Problem. Like DNI boilerplate, it's designed to exorcise the writers' own anxiety and guilt with little thought to how it will be recieved, except by the audience of peers who don't need it but think it's critically necessary for other people who need it. to the extent those people exist they aren't really welcome in the kinds of places where this discussion happens.

personally I'd say, like, 50% of these things are genuine problems in the industry? But even in those cases this approach can't really do anything about them because that's not what it's trying to do; it's aimed not at the actual problem but at the community of people for whom talking and thinking about the problem is an important social value. how the game is discussed on twitter matters more to people than how it plays, since everyone spends a lot more time talking on twitter than they do playing. you can't embed your politics in the work and make them part of its artistic vision, because then you could be blamed for someone misinterpreting it! it's related to the thing where artists get anxious about how people are interpreting serial work so they change course midstream to make it more morally leaden; when almost everyone is misinterpreting the thing it might need the change, but when you're just trying to foreclose the possibility of anyone misinterpreting it it comes off as panicky and self-absorbed to the detriment of the work

anyway, this connects with YA lit discourse not just in that it fits the "self-obsessed creative writing class" model but also in that both have a reputation as being "trivial stuff for kids" which is defended warily because the notional "kids" -- who come up obliquey even with games clearly for adults -- are a stalking horse for extremely-online 35-year-olds' personal discomfort with anything that doesn't feel "wholesome"

anyway it's tiring but I suppose there's always something fucked up about the industry. that said it's a hell of a thing that none of this seems to have really reduced community toxicity or the number of shitty people in significant positions

Made this because my other “ms paint tips” post is going around, but the images in it were only made as supplemental material for a paper i had to write and dont include all the necessary information on how the tricks work. As a result people are getting very confused when they try them out to unfavorable results. I hope all those people find this post and their confusion can be cleared up.

international shipping is so wild because like instinctually your assumption is that it's probably catastrophically bad for the environment but the enormous capacity of the modern cargo ship and the extremely low resistance of being a boat means that even with all the chicanery around burning different grades of fuel in different jurisdictions cargo ships come out extraordinarily efficient per kilogram transported, I think they even beat out trains.

While there are situations where something locally produced or manufactured will have a lower transport carbon footprint than a long distance import, that's by no means certain, especially if you live near a bulk rail station that connects to the coast.

also easier to ship someone a bicycle than the iron ore and coal necessary to smelt the steel with which to manufacture a bicycle

yeah although usually this means we just ship the iron and the coal to China in the middle!

centralised mass production allows for capital intensive investment in logistics, like the AutoHaul trains that carry iron ore in Western Australia:

no human drivers!

Freight rail companies will see a high capacity iron ore line and be like "is anyone going to push rail technology to the limits of its capacity" and not wait for an answer.

The Sishen-Saldanha iron ore line isn't autonomous but it's got one driver, one copilot, and a four kilometer long train

do you like the color of the train

the rationalist "we should clone a few thousand copies of von neumann cause they'll have really high IQ and solve all our problems" thing but for napoleon. what america needs is a (eunuch?) vat-grown napoleon clone leader class

they would literally all just kill each other

that's what the castration option is there for if necessary

Actually Napoleon had a ton of loyalty to his family and loved delegating so I think as long as you had one that was clearly a few years older than the rest to establish the initial hierarchy it would go ok

I was imagining that I personally would act as a father/uncle figure to my brood of napoleons, as head of the cloning program

"I bred a legion of Napoleon clones to be the officer corps of my fledgling dictatorship and now they've overthrown me and plunged the nation into a civil war of genetically identical but ideologically diverse factions that I must somehow defeat???"

Napoleon #08C0: Begone with you, Napoleon #1014! We'll never ally ourselves with a Bonapartist!

Comic Relief Sidekick Napoleon: Guys why can't we just Bon-together instead of Bon-aparte -_-

I would euthanize that one humanely. this is serious business

Well I wouldn't! I would kill it horribly and inhumanely, like say through drawing and quartering, and that's that!

Comic Relief Sidekick Napoleon getting drawn and quartered: "Aaaaa I'm getting Napoleon Tornaparte!!!"

this shit is why I came back to tumblr

Americans will use anything but the metric system.

> The Jerusalem Post

> Americans

You might wanna double check that one, just saying.

NASA is an American organisation even when foreign journalists report on them

NASA is calling it 34 meters, because NASA uses the metric system.

This article is by an Israeli journalist who apparently really likes borzois, and spends half the article infodumping about them.

I used to be in a creative writing group with the guy and I promise you this is absolutely normal for him.

Quite possibly the funniest thing you could have added to this post.

For anyone suffering from anxiety, the asteroid passed Earth on March 18, 2023.