GraniteM @ GraniteM @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

There are people who, disturbed by "big government" today and its tendency to curb the advantages they might gain if their competitiveness were allowed free flow, demand "less govern- ment." Alas, there is no such thing as less government, merely changes in government. If the libertarians had their way, the distant bureaucracy would vanish and the local bully would be in charge. Personally, I prefer the distant bureaucracy, which may not find me, over the local bully, who certainly will. And all historical precedent shows a change to localism to be for the worse.

—Isaac Asimov, Nice Guys Finish First, collected in The Sun Shines Bright, 1981

Conan the Barbarian (1982) has no right to be as good as it is. On paper, it's a dumb sword and sorcery flick with a body builder who could barely speak English in the lead. But everyone involved does an incredible job, from the acting to the directing, to the score. It's a crime that Destroyer trashed up the formula, and we never got Conan the King.

I'm reminded of the movie Long Way North where a heavily-accented sailor tells a girl about a dog that lives on the ship: "He is punished. He chews the rigging and steals."

If it's a wormhole or Niven-style teleporter, it's unarguably you coming through the process. Star Trek... I'll grant that the conversation gets a little more complicated.

The spacing on the lights up top is super weird. AI seems to have a real problem recreating consistent repeated patterns.

Here's the video.

It's been a while since I watched it, so judge for yourself.

"I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious."

And he did special effects for Alice Cooper!

"We're all going to die."

—Joni Ernst

I recall a Richard Feynman video where the interviewer asks him to explain how magnets work.

His answer amounts to "I can't explain that to you because if I gave you an accurate answer it would be too technical for it to make sense to you, and if I simplified it to the extent that you could understand, it would no longer be a meaningful answer."

Funny thing! Here's a quote from the same book:

Of what use, then, are the American Communists?

They serve one function extremely useful to you and to the country, so useful that, if there were no Communists, we would almost be forced to create some. They are a reliable litmus paper for detecting real sources of danger to the Republic.

Communism is so repugnant to almost all Americans, when they are getting along even tolerably well, that one may predict with certainty that any social field or group in which the Communists make real strides in gaining members or acceptance of their doctrines, any such spot is in such bad shape from real and not imaginary social ills that the rest of us should take emergency, drastic action to investigate and correct the trouble.

Unfortunately we are more prone to ignore the sick spot thus disclosed and content ourselves with calling out more cops.

If you believe that laws forbidding gambling, sale of liquor, sale of contraceptives, requiring definite closing hours, enforcing the Sabbath, or any such, are necessary to the welfare of your community, that is your right and I do not ask you to surrender your beliefs or give up your efforts to put over such laws. But remember that such laws are, at most, a preliminary step in doing away with the evils they indict. Moral evils can never be solved by anything as easy as passing laws alone. If you aid in passing such laws without bothering to follow through by digging in to the involved questions of sociology, economics, and psychology which underlie the causes of the evils you are gunning for, you will not only fail to correct the evils you sought to prohibit but will create a dozen new evils as well.

—Robert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government

Interestingly enough...

Hannibal Lecter: Look for severe childhood disturbances associated with violence. Our Billy wasn't born a criminal, Clarice. He was made one through years of systematic abuse. Billy hates his own identity, you see, and he thinks that makes him a transsexual. But his pathology is a thousand times more savage and more terrifying.

Gaston has a trio of smoking hot blondes that are all over him, but he goes for the bookworm who wants nothing to do with him. He wants a wife who won't care when he goes on extended "hunting trips" with his manly man buddies, not one who will be all over him in the bedroom.

Anyone who notices something is slightly off about them, like frames where he has extra fingers or nonsense text on the papers on his desk is called a conspiracy theorist, and to shut up and celebrate the Dear Leader's 170th birthday.

The year is 2117. Either...

A: AI still can't generate video without a bunch of fucky artifacts.

B: The Trump administration is still using janky AI from the 2020s, even though better options exist.

Both sound plausible.

Well somebody should tell Zach Braff that.