Aug 232023
 

A few years ago a lot of people were blown away to find out that a sizable fraction of the population has no inner monologue. Some people can’t “hear” themselves think or “hear” remembered music, movies, things loved ones said. Related, some people can’t envision things: they can’t see an apple in their minds eye, because they don’t have a minds eye. For those of us who can, this is a bit mind blowing; I honestly can’t imagine how I’d go through my day. But for those who can’t hear or see within their minds, finding out that others can sounds like insanity. “You have voices in your head?”

 

Now here’s another way in which people differ: “conditional hypotheticals.” Take for instance, if Person A were to ask Person B:

“How would you feel if you hadn’t eaten yesterday?”

 

Most of us, I would assume, would respond with something like “I’d be hungry,” or “I’d be happy to be on my diet,” or “I’d be filled with an unquenchable rage to destroy my enemies and see their women driven before me.” You know, normal stuff. But there are those people who simply cannot understand the question. “But I *did* eat yesterday.”

 

In retrospect, over the years I’ve encountered this sort of thing *a* *lot.* For example, a few years after the invasion of Iraq and the taking out of Saddam, I got into a pointless online argument. My argument went along the lines of “What if we *didn’t* invade?” The point being that the inspection regime was coming to its end. Within fairly short order Saddam *would* have been able to restart his WMD programs. That could well have led to a far, far worse war. Or not, who knows, it can be fairly argued either way. But what astonished me was the other guy, when I asked my hypothetical: “But we did invade.” No amount of trying to get him to see alternate histories would budge him past the fixed point of “it happened, that way.” I thought he was just being a jackass. Now… perhaps he was just *incapable* of seeing alternatives.

 

Perhaps this issue is a feature of lower IQ. Perhaps, like the lack of an inner monologue, it can hit just about anyone. But whatever, such people should probably be kept from important roles dealing with planning for the future, especially when future plans are dependent upon learning from past mistakes. Someone with this issue would seem to make a *terrible* strategist.

 

 

This issue has arisen before in popular culture…

 Posted by at 10:03 am
Aug 222023
 

US citizens urged to leave Belarus immediately

The State Department, in its warning, encouraged Americans still in Belarus to depart the country immediately and categorized the country as a Level 4 risk, the highest security warning.

Two possibilities spring immediately to mind:

1) The US Government knows that something is about to happen

2) The US Government *wants* Putin to think that something is about to happen

 

There are of course less charitable explanations for seemingly random proclamations:

 Posted by at 4:43 pm
Aug 162023
 

“Our heroes aircraft is falling from the sky! Will they pull out in time to avoid a firey crash and bring the episode, nay, the entire series, to a screeching and unexpected halt, requiring not only clever writing but also difficult actor contract negotiations with the attendant risk of turning off the existing fans?”

Bah. No, of course the aircraft will pull out at the last second. Of course.

Lazy.

 

 

Those old enough to remember TV from the 80’s will doubtless *vaguely* recall any of a number of the same scene: the *enemy* aircraft, often a helicopter, has been struck. Gun, missile, onboard explosion, someone whacked the pilot, whatever, the vehicle is going down. Will it crash? Well, since these are the bad guys and, what’s more, *unimportant* bad guy characters, yes. It’ll crash. But at the last moment it’ll go down *behind* the nearest hill. You’ll know it crashed because a fireball that sure looks a whole lot like some combination of back powder and gasoline will go FOOOOM from behind the hill. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper than crashing an actual aircraft on camera, and slightly less visually awful than using bad scale models or, perhaps worse, stock footage, to depict the event. But it still got to be an incredibly tired and predictable shot.

 Posted by at 11:46 pm
Aug 142023
 

A video started making the rounds online a day or two ago. It shows an airline passenger nightmare: the little kid behind you not only kicking your seat, but the lil’ monsters mother not only doing nothing to stop that behavior, she’s aggressive in preventing anyone else from stopping it.

A number of commenters are using the video to discuss this or that: race relations, the lack of fathers, the lack of discipline, the power and arrogance of the matriarchy, etc. All valid issues to discuss, but there’s one little issue: that ain’t an airplane. Jetliners don’t have slab-sided walls, nor do they have support columns. It’s a set, and they’re actors.

 

It’s a “comedy” video, though nothing about it seemed all that funny; it just doesn’t seem to be played for laughs, but for realism. The “Beverly Hills Comedy Team” has a number of airliner-based vids using the same set. The full length vid is on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/beverlyhillscomedyteam/videos/261172053373780/

 

 

 

 Posted by at 2:39 pm
Aug 102023
 

I posted a reply and was *instantly* locked out for twelve hours. Why? Because I pointed out that in Star Trek, society is post-scarcity (not socialist, as was claimed by the guy I was replying to) and that mental illness is largely a thing of the past (as evidenced by “Dagger of the Mind” and “Whom Gods Destroy”) and the whole gender madness we’re currently experiencing is long past (see “Enterprise” episode “Cogenitor” where it is made repeatedly and abundantly clear that humans have a grand total of two genders, and that a third is weird and alien and really kinda disturbing to a lot of folks). The vague Twitter message said something about violating the rules on advocating violence or some such nonsense.

 

So either the sensitive little soul I replied to was lightning fast on his “my feelings are hurt, make the bad man and his opposing viewpoint go away” button, or Twitter has a bot that does it automatically. In either case, the “Twitter is a free speech zone” claim looks a little dubious to me at the moment.

 

Update: Now Twitter says it could take more than a week for my account to be restored to functionality.

 Posted by at 12:53 am
Aug 082023
 

People who have lived in a place for centuries often hold eccentric, old, downright obsolete facilities in higher regard than people who hav4e just moved in and have no links to the place. Example: a centuries-old pub was sold to a developer. It was signed up for historic protection, but before the paperwork could go through a pile of rubble was mysteriously dumped into the road leading to it. And then it mysteriously caught fire, with the pile of rubble blocking the fire department. The brick structure remained standing, opening up the possibility of being restored; it was then very quickly razed to the ground mechanically. Gosh, I guess it’s gone, nothing left for it but to built cheap housing on the very valuable plot of land…

 

Police ‘reviewing all evidence’ on cause of Crooked House pub fire

Mayor calls for Crooked House pub gutted by fire to be rebuilt ‘brick by brick’

 

 

Huh. It’s a mystery.

 

 Posted by at 3:45 pm
Jul 272023
 

“The 13th Warrior” was, shockingly to me, one of history’s great box office bombs… budget was about $100 million in 1999, but it only made about $33 million domestically, less than that foreign. Counting marketing, it lost well over a hundred million dollars. I’ve never understood why this was so; it was a substantially badass movie, based on a Michael Chrichton novel (“Eaters of the Dead”) not long after the success of “Jurassic Park,” starring Antonio Banderas. It had Vikings fighting Neanderthals. What was not to like? Well, apparently the movie going public wasn’t interested. My ass was in the theater on opening weekend.

It had a DVD release, but never a valid Blu Ray. I’d be all over a 4K release.

 Posted by at 1:34 pm
Jul 152023
 

Photos have emerged from the next Disney live action remake of one of their classic animated films, “Snow White.” You know, the one about the Germanic princess with skin so white it looked like snow, who ended up running around with seven dwarves? Well… about all that, Disney has decided to continue the unprofitable trend of de-whitening European folk tales.

There are claims that these *aren’t* the actual “dwarves.” But given that “Snow White” is to be played by a Hispanic woman… why assume that these *aren’t* an accurate depiction? And remember, Hollywood is hardly above lying to the public’s face. Remember when Benedict Cumberbatch *wasn’t* playing Khan? Or when all the remakes and reboots of classic animated series were supposed to be faithful continuations that the existing fans would recognize, love and appreciate? Yeah… lying liars who lie have a tendency to lie.

And… it turns out that those claims of “fake” are probably themselves fake:

‘Snow White’ Set Pics Stir Anti-Woke Criticism

Asked for comment on the brouhaha, a Disney spokesperson initially told The Daily Beast “the photos are fake and not from our production” and added that the Mouse House wanted a correction from the Mail.

Hours later, however, Disney’s PR shop completely backtracked and said the photos were from the production but were not official “photos”—chalking up the earlier statement to a misunderstanding.

 

Dear readers, consider this: somewhere out in the multiverse there’s a version of the Disney corporation that decided to do a live action remake of “Snow White,” and decided to try their hardest to make it look like the original animated classic. And somewhere else out there is another Disney that decided to do a “Snow White” remake that was faithful to the Grimm tale as written. And somewhere further down the multiverse line is a version of Disney that decide to say “Fark it” and make a truly messed-up remake that swaps out all the “disneyfication” for hard-core “let’s make this thing like Germans a thousand years ago would have made it, with friggen’ terrifying monsters and death and horror straight out of Teutonic legends and myths and folk tales,” likely directed by del Toro with the aid of the ghosts of Lovecraft and Giger.

Any one of those is something I would have been interested in. *This* worlds Disney? Nah.

 

Note: the “dwarves” from Norse/Germanic folk tales weren’t just short humans. They were a different order of being entirely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_(folklore)

Anyway, Hollywood is basically on strike now, with writers and actors on the picket line. I imagine this might effect “Snow White,” as well as every other movie and TV show out there. But you know what? Who friggen’ cares. Things have gotten so slow in Hollywood that people have come to expect *years* between seasons of shows… seasons with a tiny number of episodes. long gone are the likes of *good* Star Trek series where you could expect 20+ episodes every year. now… Eight? Ten? And with many shows, the gap between seasons lasting a number of years. When did season 3 of “The Orville” end? When will season 4 start… if it ever does? And let’s face it: there are a metric fark-ton of old movies and shows available for streaming, more than enough to tide most people over for the most extended of strike. And beyond even that… YouTube and the like are loaded to the gills with lone creators who are far more entertaining than quarter-billion-dollar productions. So you go right ahead and shut down production, Hollywood. if it strangles nonsense like “Snow White,” so much the better.

 

How long before I’m able to say “Hey, AI, make me a four-hour faithful adaptation of ‘Snow White’ Using the production team from “The Lord Of The Rings” and starring Marylin Monroe as Snow White’?” Because that’ll be the end of Hollywood.

 Posted by at 10:14 am
Jul 132023
 

I have no idea if it has been apparent or not based on recent blog/Twitter postings that the last few days have been frazzling for me. But the short form is that Buttons has been quite sick… and terribly miserable. Several days of vet visits finally culminated today in the conclusion that he *probably* is suffering from another bout of pancreatitis, though the initial symptoms were quite different from the earlier bouts. This time it seemed as if he was plugged up somehow, but a X-ray showed that he’s clear. Blood work revealed the infection markers of pancreatitis, so he was treated for that today… and he has shown improvement.

A vocally miserable cat is not something I recommend. Especially one so miserable that he chooses to remain inert and just wail. AAAARRRRGH.

 

This was him yesterday, looking hopeless.

 

This was at the vet today prior to the doc coming in. You can see just how absolutely thrilled he was.

 

X-ray of his innards. It reportedly shows that his intestines are largely empty. To me is seems to indicate that his abdomen is infected with a space-squid of some kind.

 

And this critter is “Ziggy” the French bulldog who was in the vet clinic waiting room as I was checking out. Friendly little guy even if he looks like he aught to be gnawing the foot off of a selfless dark age princess of Urland.

 

Buttons seems to be on the mend. He does not appear to be in agony anymore; instead he simply seems to be wore out. He didn’t eat or drink for several days; he has recent eaten and drank *some,* though not a lot. Progress, anyway.

 

This has cost a *lot.* I need to put a ton of stuff on ebay, both to cover this and my other rather voluminous bills,  but if you’re of a mind to, feel free to hit the tip jar below…

 


Feline Tip Jar


 Posted by at 9:37 pm