Some people are like "The classic sci-fi novel Don't Create the Torment Nexus is Problematic because it features the Torment Nexus"
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#dresses #frICK I NEED ITMore you might like
i just spent like an hour looking through my clothes to figure out what i’m gonna wear tomorrow because all my nice dresses are either just SLIGHTLY too small now or dirty or i’m missing a piece of the outfit or ??? UGH
tbh i’m hoping lotor has like…… one of those dramatically deep v-neck suits that goes all the way to his belly button and glittering spiked pauldrons and vicious heeled boots
but is like. otherwise played completely straight. none of the galra comment on it. he isn’t flamboyant or ridiculous, he’s a cunning evil prince with a touch of dramatic flair but not too much for his position as zarkon’s son except he just… dresses like a figure skater
look, I know I've talked about this essay (?) before but like,
If you ever needed a good demonstration of the quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", have I got an exercise for you.
Somebody made a small article explaining the basics of atomic theory but it's written in Anglish. Anglish is basically a made-up version of English where they remove any elements (words, prefixes, etc) that were originally borrowed from romance languages like french and latin, as well as greek and other foreign loanwords, keeping only those of germanic origin.
What happens is an english which is for the most part intelligible, but since a lot everyday english, and especially the scientific vocabulary, has has heavy latin and greek influence, they have to make up new words from the existing germanic-english vocabulary. For me it kind of reads super viking-ey.
Anyway when you read this article on atomic theory, in Anglish called Uncleftish Beholding, you get this text which kind of reads like a fantasy novel. Like in my mind it feels like it recontextualizes advanced scientific concepts to explain it to a viking audience from ancient times.
Even though you're familiar with the scientific ideas, because it bypasses the normal language we use for these concepts, you get a chance to examine these ideas as if you were a visitor from another civilization - and guess what, it does feel like it's about magic. It has a mythical quality to it, like it feels like a book about magic written during viking times. For me this has the same vibe as reading deep magic lore from a Robert Jordan book.
That "somebody" is science fiction writer Poul Anderson, fyi.
We read this in one of my German linguistics classes in grad school.
One difference between the Lord of the Rings books and the Peter Jackson films that I find really interesting is what the hobbits find when they return to the Shire.
In the books, they return from the War, only to see that the war has not left their home untouched. Not only has it not left their home unscathed, battle and conflict is still actively ravaging the Shire. They return, weary and battle-scarred, to find a home actively wounded and in need of rescue and healing. All four launch themselves into defending their home and rousting those harming it, and eventually succeed. But their idyllic home has been damaged, and even once healed, is never quite again the Shire they set out to save.
In contrast, in the Jackson films, they return to a Shire shockingly untouched by the horrors of war. The hobbits of the Shire talk, in the Green Dragon in Fellowship of the Ring, about not getting involved with issues "beyond our borders," and it seems those issues have not invaded their sanctuary. After having been bowed to by kings, dwarves, elves, and men alike at the coronation in Gondor, their only acknowledgment upon returning home is a skeptical head shake from an older hobbit.
One of the most poignant scenes to me in Return of the King (and there are a considerable amount) is the scene where Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are sitting in the Green Dragon. The pub patrons bustle around them, talking loudly, clapping excitedly, drinking cheerfully, just as they had in the beginning of the story. But the four hobbits sit silently, watching almost curiously at what was once familiar but is now foreign to them. Their home has not changed. But they have.
Which is the deeper hurt? To come to your home to find it irrevocably changed, despite all you did to keep it untouched and the same? Or to return home but no longer feeling at home, because it is only you that is irrevocably changed?
thanks to unity's downright evil new pricing model that charges per-install (including reinstalls), it will now be impossible to sign a deal with a publisher for your unity game because i can guarantee there are zero publishers who are willing to lose money every single time your game gets downloaded and installed.
great news, are you a marginalized game dev? awesome. now 4chan can organize a mass uninstall/reinstall hate campaign and bankrupt you in minutes. unity claims they have fraud protection but i must stress that it's literally not possible for them to determine where an install came from, the intent of the install, what storefront the install came from, or even if the install was from a pirated copy or not.
if a dev gets targeted by revenue bombing it's now on the developer to file a dispute
From what I've seen people saying this sounds like pirated games would also count against the devs unless they also intruded some specific anti-piracy measures to determine if a copy is legit or not before counting it. (And I'm sure people would find ways to cheat that, anyway)
It also would count if somebody installed a game on multiple devices, or if they had to uninstall and reinstall for some reason. Potentially also if you upgraded some of your PC parts because it wouldn't be able to yell the difference between that and being installed on a different device.
This is hopefully going to be contested and forced to be walked back, but... it's pretty bad. Even if they walk this back, they've pretty much ruined any trust many people had in them because if this was considered chill to announce who knows what BS will get pulled in the future even if this change falls through??
The CEO sold A HUGE amount of stock just a few days before this piece of garbage news came out.
I think that counts as insider trading.
Also just to jump in here, Unity has no means of producing any actual metrics on installs. No means exists to do that reliably from a developer or publisher stand point, let alone Unity's position as someone who licenses a dev tool. Like yeah you can kinda track installs based on number of sales and info from DRM or other network related things that phone home, but those numbers aren't accurate. You can't know how many times a program has been INSTALLED. you can see purchases sure, but thats only for legal copies. And that's point of sale data, not point of install.
Point of install is a genuinely insane concept to try and tie a monetary fee to. It's unenforceable and unknowable. When pushed by basically everyone in the industry Unity said they would "leverage a proprietary data model" to find out this info which boils down basically to "trust us bro." Like there no way their numbers will be reliable. At worst they'll be like what people have already pointed out, charging for pirated copies or even creating an attack vector where someone could intentionally install a game to try and ruin a developer financially. At best their numbers will be wildly inaccurate in a way that doesn't cost that much. But we have no details on how these numbers are actually collected. They won't tell us what methods they use, if some kind of always online system will be implemented into Unity games by default. They also want this to apply retroactively to every Unity game period. It's insanity.
But as is pointed out this seems to be a genuine, outright scam. The CEO, a Grade A shitbag who is also behind a lot of EA's shit baggery from when he was an executive there, has moved a bunch of stocks ahead of this announcment, seemingly trying to short his own stocks. Thats textbook insider trading and pretty goddamn illegal.
What I think he's trying to do is some good old fashion vulture capitalism. He took over Unity with the goal of driving it into the ground and making money off its corpse. This latest policy is an out of touch, genuinely insane attempt at rent seeking that he probably thought would A) drive down stock prices and B) generate some real blood from a stone profits for him to hoover up before he finally let's the husk of the company collapse. However I think this guy is too stupid to realize he's overplayed his hand. Not only did he commit an obvious financial crime, he also instituted a retroactive policy that WILL get him and his company sued. They've said they intend to bill Microsoft for any unity games distributed on Game Pass. Microsoft isn't gonna take that shit. Especially when the pricing per install is absurd. 20 cents an install sounds like chump change but on a game with a few hundred thousand or even several millions installs that quickly becomes a huge sum. Consider how many devs make tiny free to plays with unity. Now they're gonna be in the hole by dent of their game existing. Even if they delist the games from store fronts pirated copies could still cost them. There no way this doesn't end in a legal fire storm and probably the death of unity as a popular dev tool, if not the death of the company and its tool outright.
My takeaway from this is capitalism remains completely at odds with human expression and art. So long as we let profit margins be a deciding factor in anything, it will always end up where we are with this, a greedy man ruining other people's lives and destroying valuable systems and tools, threatening entire forms of expression, to make himself a little bit richer. To generate money that doesn't even mean that much to him. It's absurd and it's disgusting and they can thrust this kind of hollowing out on us whenever they want because our society it built to empower the rich and no one else.
when i say 'i want worse graphics', some ppl assume i mean 'i want stylyzed instead of realistic' then get mad at me for saying it wrong (???) so let me be clear:
i want worse graphics. i want the models topology to be a bit off, i want the rigging to have a few verts mis-weighted, i want the final model to not be accurate to the concept art cuz it would have been too labor intensive to make the scarf that long. i want the shading to do the thing where a real time character shadow is casting on top of another baked in shadow. i want whatever eases the devs workload and prevents crunch so they can go home to their loved ones and actually enjoy their life outside of work
and im not kidding
Today's Adventure is that I, after an unintentional 13-hour power nap,
- Got woken up at 6AM by a phone call from a friend stranded in Montana because of the heat wave and almost no cell service because of their crap provider.
- OhSoThat'sHowIt'sGonnaBe.jpg
- Ok.
- I somehow summon a week's worth of spoons and in less than 30 minutes and 5 phone calls, get them
- A hotel
- An appointment with a mechanic from 2 states away
- A perscription refilled from 2 states away
- and A Pizza
- Go me.
- But then it's 8AM and there are unscheduled live humans at the door and while EVERGENCY MODE is still on, I have already blown through a ton of spoons, and also probably shouldn't meet whoever it is wearing just a pair of bootyshorts that say "CRYPTID" in Gothic Font on my ass.
- So I greet them in those shorts and a T-shirt that I manage to put on both inside out and backwards
- #nailedit
- It is, Fortunately, not the mormons.
- it is, Unfortunately, two UPS guys trying to deliver my other in-house friend's new phone except the new guy doesn't know how to operate the "sign for package" device, and the old guy that's supposed to be mentoring him is like, 92, deaf as a post, and doesn't actually know how to operate the device either.
- by the way
- it is already
- over 100 out
- it takes almost 30 minutes to sign for the phone
- when i get back inside, i discover that apparently the Corgi has learned how to open his kennel from the inside because he is now out of the kennel and waiting for me to come in.
- he also has cat litter all over his face because while he was waiting for me he also learned how to open the baby gate to the cat's room and help himself to a cat shit breakfast.
- He'll be fine
- He's a cattle dog, they're legally required to have at least 1 really disgusting snack they love.
- but
- more to the point
- i have no idea at what point he learned to open his kennel from the inside
- has he been staying there out of politeness this whole time??
- And
- I got other shit to do today.
- namely.
- I'm seeing a realator
- The Devils most pathetic yet effective demons
- I get a reminder text that I have an appointment with her
- at least
- I think that's what it is because what she sends me is:
"🏡⏰12:00 ❔" - With the time typed in the middle like that.
- She is, according to her profile, at least 80.
- so I reply "😎👍"
- and then she sends me a string of GODDAMN POST-MODERN EMOJI HEIROGLYPHICS THAT TAKE UP MY ENTIRE SCREEN.
- She's on an iPhone so half of them don't even translate across platforms
- It takes me half an hour and three different software programs and goddamn wingdings to translate, but she has sent me the address and rules about masking and not wearing shoes inside.
- in emoji
- instead of like
- literally any other format
- I am
- FASCINATED
- and simply must meet the woman so if I don't come back to update I got stolen by the fairies but I'm taking the Corgi with me as protection so I'll see y'all later.
Update:
- It's not fairies
- It's Doris.
- might be about to get a sewing machine and/or start an ACAB riot.
Ok, so:
- I'm going to see a prospective house because due to various circumstances, I'm probably going to be moving to the other side of a major metropolitan area in the next few months, but that's not important.
- I get to the house
- I get a text from the realtor
- The realtor is not the person who has been texting me in emoji
- The person texting me in emoji is the homeowner, who the realtor says will let me in if I want, she's running late.
- Sure
- Why not
- I put Herschel on leash and go to the front door
- As much crime as he commits at home Herschel The Hanukkah Goblin has terrific public manners, and is Very Cute so I'm about 90% sure the emoji fairy is going to let me take him through the house
- Door opens.
- 90-something blue haired old lady with a spine like a question mark and glasses that could be used as telescope lenses opens the door.
- "OH [Gallus]! How lovely to see you!"
- This woman clearly knows me because she remembers my anniversary was last week and that my sister is back from Australia.
- Problem is
- I know about 500 geriatric ladies with blue hair, scoliosis and extreme prescription glasses, because I am a member of 2 quilt guilds, the scientific illustration guild, the rocky mountain SCA and stagehand for three different theater companies, so I know everyone's grandma and fuck me if I can tell them apart.
- Wait
- There's a quilt in thekitchen, visible front hall
- I don't know faces but apparently I can recognize applique techniques at 40paces.
- "...Doris? From SAQA?"
- "YES! Who is this handsome little man?"
- Herschel speaks enough English to know that "handsome little man" means "this person will feed me milk bones and bacon if I'm cute enough"
- Immediately does a Sit Pretty and Shake.
- Doris is bewitched
- This is fine, but I also know I'm about to severely disappoint the realtor because there is no way in hell I'm moving into this House.
- Because
- The reason Doris is moving out is that her neighbor is a Cunt Magnifique and has been harassing Doris and everyone else to form an HOA and "improve the quality of our residents" because this woman has nothing better to do than be a racist-ass busy body, and recently, she's set her husband, a county sheriff on Doris, trying to bully her into signing paperwork and threatening her with legal action and writing her up for bullshit property violations
- Ain't putting up with that shit
- And neither is Doris, so she's selling all her shit and moving out to live with her grandchildren in Santa Monica.
- But she's technologically impaired, so the only indication that there is an estate sale happening is a small paper sign in her front yard.
- "Doris." I say, as Herschel makes himself comfortable on the couch for belly rubs and pieces of ham. "Did you tell SAQA or FRCC or anyone on Facebook that you're having the sale?"
- "oh, I don't know how to do all that!" She sighs. "I tried to call the Denver post but they just put me on hold for ages..."
- "Watch Herschel for 20 minutes and he's only allowed to have that one piece of ham."
- Pics of everything
- Address, time and pics to Facebook, both quilt guilds she's in, two more I have contacts for, nextdoor, and the local SCA discord for good measure.
- It's 12 minutes and Herschel persuaded her to give him at least three pieces of ham.
- He is petitioning for a fourth by doing a little puppy dance on the living room rug.
- "OK, that's enough ham, people will be here in 10. Where is your cash box?"
- Because apparently I'm running an estate sale today too.
- It's fine :)
- There's about 7 minutes of quiet.
- Then
- They DESCEND
- The first on the scene is DeeDee, who doesn't believe in speed limits. She's arrived with a horse trailer. I remember that she is also moving.
- "HI DORIS SWEETHEART WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL I HAD NO IDEA THIS WAS TODAY I WAS GOING TO TAKE ALL THIS TO THE GOODWILL HERE LET ME SET UP ON YOUR LAWN "
- DeeDee is 73, and has a special spiritual bond with Hello Kitty. She weighs like 98lbs, dresses exclusively in neon pink sanrio clothes and the kind of eye makeup drag queens aspire to.
- She also speaks non-stop at a volume normally associated with jet engines.
- Half the horse trailer is already spread out on the lawn.
- Doris is putting price stickers on stuff
- Herschel is trying to tear open a bag of cotton batting.
- This, and the arrival of approximately 56 minivans, five more trucks with horse trailers and Corgi Excitement Screaming alert Cunt Magnifique that something is happening outside.
- Madame saunters off her porch up to Doris and Demands to know what's happening, you're supposed to notify the neighborhood and get a permit to-"
- Doris, surrounded by her pack of silver wolves, shouts. "OH HELLO! EVERYONE, THIS IS MARCIA. I'VE TOLD YOU ALL ABOUT MARCIA." >:)c
... further details in a bit I think the Vikings are here.
~`* SOMEONE'S GETTING FIRED!!*`~
OK so.
- You know those high school house parties you see in movies, where the person invites only a few friends, but those friends call their friends, and those friends call THEIR friends and soon like 500 people show up to one house and someone calls the cops and that one John Mulaney sketch with "SCATTER!" happens?
- Old people will 100% do this too, except instead of a house party it's an estate sale on a wednesday afternoon and when the cop shows up there are lawyers present and he is in DEEP SHIT because his wife just spent the afternoon admitting to doing a bunch of wildly illegal shit on tape.
- So when we left off, the party had really started getting underway, because Marcia the Cunt Magnifique had decided to crash the estate sale and whine about "we're supposed to coordinate garage sales as a neighborhood" and "your friends are blocking traffic on this cul-de-sac while nobody is home" weh weh-
- DeeDee is about ready to throw hands but she is nowhere near the most dangerous of the Silver Silver Wolves.
- That's Dr. Ruth.
- Dr. Ruth turned 99 this year and went paragliding for her birthday
- So you understand just how hard she goes
- Dr. Ruth sort of hobbles over and point-blank asks "So I understand you've been trying to start a homeowner's association?" :3c
- Marcia
- Entirely misunderstanding how much danger she's in
- Starts enumerating the TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS of trying to start one, because SOME PEOPLE DON'T RESPECT AUTHORITY and all the paperwork and talking to people and she even had to ask HER HUSBAND. A SHERRIF. To go around and hand people stuff to sign.
- Some people, right?
- Dr. Ruth nods. Some people. She agrees.
- You know.
- Her son is a lawyer.
- Why doesn't she give him a call?
- Marcia, a Moron: Oh that'd be great!
- Dr. Ruth, hobbling back to Doris: "Don't worry. David will handle this."
- Meanwhile
- The Friends-Of-Friends and the Friends-Of-Friends-Of-Friends are arriving, lured in because they heard the words "Longarm Sewing Machine" and "Hand-made quilts"
- Various factions present include but are far from limited to:
-Probably Six Quilt Guilds
-The Denver Art League
-The Denver Leather League
-The Vikings
-The Klingons
-The Colorado Wild Game Share
-A Pack of Scientific Illustrators
-A Pack of Assorted Scientists they brought with them
-The Sheep Lesbians
-The Horse Lesbians
-Three Extremely Competent Finnish People (My Scientific Illustration Professor and her sisters) who immediately take over the estate sale and turn it into an auction to maximize profit and keep the taxes in order. - Someone brings two additional Corgi called "Cap" and "Bucky"
- They are Pembroke Corgi, and weigh about 21lbs apiece
- Herschel is a Cardigan Welsh Corgi and weighs 42lbs because he's hug even for a Cardigan, and is Delighted with his New Minions.
- They worship him as a God and follow him around so every time he sticks his face in something two smaller corgi faces immediately follow, like some kind of adorable cerberus.
- Pelts and meat shares are being traded out of the backs of trucks and vans
- Someone is making bratwurst.
- Intrigued by the Brouhaha, Doris' neighbors emerge.
- They are also Geriatric and very nervous, because Marcia has been harassing them too.
- They are telling this to the members of these factions that are also lawyers.
- There are at least 5 of them so far and David isn't even here yet.
- I realize my realtor isn't even here.
- I decide to text her.
- She is somewhere in the crowd and having a nervous breakdown because She's SO LATE!!!
- Ma'am.
- It's 103 out.
- I was just handed a freshly grilled Brat
- Some bitch is incriminating herself on the lawn.
- Nothing scheduled is happening.
- Come sit in the yard and watch the Corgis play on the Palyskool plastic slide set. They're disassembling it like tiny furry engineers.
- Have a bratwurst.
- One of the Klingons appears, having physically carried my realtor through the crowd, and gently deposits her on the lawn before handing her a Bratwurst.
- Diane, the Realtor, is not much older than I am, and from the preppie swaths of society that has "Never had a dog growing up" and "Didn't Know People Could Just. Make. Blankets?" and "What is this? It's like a hot dog but spicy?"
- She is having a LEARNING EXPERIENCE.
- One of the Horse Lesbians comes over and compliments Diane on her Dior handbag.
- Diane thanks her ans compliments the apparently expensive brand scarf she has on. Do you. Know all these people?
- Horse Lesbian explains that she's part of the SCA,
and what that is,
and that why yes.
Her girlfriend Tasha is an armorer.
Yes like for knights. - More Livestock Lesbians assemble.
- They are pulling off shirts to show off livestock and battle scars, and biceps.
- Diane is LEARNING A LOT TODAY.
- I am just getting everyone's contact info and making sure Herschel does not consume his weight in bratwurst.
- BWOOP!
- Uh-Oh.
- Marcia's Husband is here.
- I step out front.
- He has used the siren to largely part the crowd and pull into his driveway but it has closed around him and there is No Escape.
- He starts huffing and puffing about blocked traffic and permits and the like, but this is not his usual Can-Bully-Without-Consequences crowd.
- These are Grandmas.
- Veterans of the 60's protest front who never let up.
- He's starting to turn bright red and looks like he's about to cry and I've got my phone out to record whatever Incident is about to occur.
- -And a Mercedes pulls up.
- It's David.
- Dr. Ruth's son.
- The Lawyer.
- And I emphasize that The because David is not some mere ambulance chaser.
- David is the guy that the state sends to prosecute Corporate Fraud and Organized Crime and Other State Departments.
- David was part of the team that took down the CO Branch of the KKK.
- David is all of 5'4", very round and a balding little man that looks like the Dictonary Definition of "Nebbish" that moves with such intense confidence and authority that he pretty much has the Pillar Men Theme Blasting behind him at all times.
- So when he and three other lawyers from the state's office step out of the car
- Mr. Sherrif goes from red to while like color-changing octopus and I am like 50% sure he shit himself.
- Because what he and Marcia have been doing is Very,
Very,
Very,
VERY,
Fucking Illegal. - "mArCiA!" he garbles. "sHuT tHe fUcK uP!"
- Marcia is standing in the middle of the cul-de-sac, having spent the last 3 hours recounting to anyone who will listen about the 'measures she's had to take' and now the 5 lawyers that were here are delightedly handing over the paperwork that she had forced on Doris and her Neighbors, and pointing at all the doorbell cameras and witnesses out to the state's top prosecutor.
- Friends
- I ugly laughed.
- FOUR HOURS LATER:
-Auction wrapped up with a solid $40K to Doris' name plus pending sales on some of her larger furniture and antiques - Plus whatever David gets in damages from the county sherrif's office.
- Marcia and husband are fucking busted
- Herschel spent all afternoon running around and eating snacks and is passed out on the floor
- Diane is "meeting up with" one of the Horse Lesbians next week.
- The sewing machine went to someone else but I did open my purse and found out Doris or someone shoved a bunch of cash in there.
- I'm getting ice dream and going to bed.
I love this story. ^^
I don’t have children so take this with a grain of salt but I hate when you can tell people like the concept of their children more than their well-being. Parents like the concept of an all-beige nursery that’s photogenic more than they care about the development of their kid’s brain. They like the concept of a cutely dressed kid in designer clothes more than they care about their comfort and personal desires. They like the concept of a child who never eats poorly more than they care about the happiness that can come from a child eating some candy now and then. People need to stop treating their kids like little dolls
Uh, I have kids, and so I've spent a lot of time around kids and around other parents, and you are very much on to something.
Whether they have kids because they felt like they needed to or because they wanted an heir or whatever, they don't actually want to hang out with developing humans. They want the idea of kids. They want the Christmas card and the pictures on the desk and the Instagram picture.
They don't want the baby screaming for 5 hours straight because it's too cold out to walk to the store and get more baby ibuprofen for the ear infection on Friday night and your partner has the car. They don't get that the baby is crying because she's literally never hurt worse than this in her tiny life, and they don't get that their toddler has never been sadder than when her favorite toy broke, and that she really didn't know she would break it if she did the thing she just did. That the 4-year-old is crying because the world is too big and too overwhelming and she has no control over where she goes or what she does most of the time, and that the 14-year-old isn't telling them anything about her life because they told her ten years ago to shut up or they'd give her something worth crying about, so she knows they don't value her real feelings, only the ones she's supposed to have.
And they don't want to get any of it. And it fucking sucks that people who don't actually WANT kids feel like they have to have them, or have them to have something smaller than themselves to bully, or have kids as a status symbol. It all just blows, and mostly because:
Kids are people, and most people are actually pretty fucking rad, if given the opportunity to be.
There are a lot of good parents out there, and then there are the parents who had kids because they thought they had to, or wanted someone to boss around, or whatever. And like... even if you thought you wanted kids, you can quickly find out that it actually blows to be a parent in a nuclear family setup, and get really burned out on being a parent. Kids are much better raised by an extended family. That's how we're wired. And like... we broke it. We broke it, and it breaks parents and it hurts kids.