An AI learns to impersonate a certain “special” someone and replaces Abe Simpsons voice…
Ol’ “Abe” sounds like he’s tired. Doesn’t have the enthusiasms of the original, but that’s common for these sort of AI voice replacements. So far, they haven’t nailed inflections; everyone has a pretty flat affect. Still… the sound of being tired, ready for bed, had one too many… it’s appropriate.
Frak’s sake. 2021 already blows.
It is a night of great sadness, for our friend and comrade had gone down the road where we cannot reach her. But as with all things, we will catch up with her in time, and I believe she will have many stories to tell us, and many new roles to share with the universe. pic.twitter.com/HyQlqyC19v
— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) January 22, 2021
With all the burning last year, I missed this story. The next time you hear or read on one of those Antifa goons torching a place, and some oxygen thief defends their actions because “arson isn’t violence” or “it’s just stuff” or some such vacuous drivel, hit them with this story:
Now, the defender-of-arson will likely point out “but there was a funding effort and he got a lot of money” or “he probably had insurance” or some such nonsense. Never mind the emotional distress of having *your* *stuff* destroyed, there is also this:
Ron had spent 20 years breeding a super-bee that was able to survive attacks from a killer mite that destroyed millions of bees across the world.
The arsonists didn’t just take away a hobby or a source of income… they endangered the very existence of bees. And without bees, a lot of other species will suffer -including humans – due to bees being important pollinators. The arsonists can fairly be faulted for a mass attack on the environment, attempted (perhaps eventually successful) extermination of whole species, and genocide against large swaths of mankind.
No fundamental difference between these arsonists and those who burned Uncle Hugo’s science fiction bookstore… or anywhere else. That’s why I stand foursquare with those calling for the identification, arrest and charging with insurrection/domestic terrorism all those who set fires within the Capitol building earlier this month.
It’s an interesting read. More than 20,000 Guardsmen were uselessly sent to protect the Capital from phantom insurgents; they were meant to play guards, but were unarmed, vetted, insulted and name-called by their political masters… then once their utility in an episode of political theater was over, they were sent to be packed neck-deep in a parking garage with vastly insufficient facilities.
Good job.
Foreign-born population in the US from 1850 to 2019.
Note the rather sudden spike starting about 1960, becoming clear in 1973, and a massive wave in just a year or three after that.
For all of 2020, protestors have been given virtually free reign to loot, pillage, burn and destroy. People who repeatedly demonstrated that they were textbook domestic terrorists, insurrectionists, and conspiracy nuts, buying into every ill-informed and downright fraudulent story of some poor innocent murdered by some cops, were lauded by the media and given a pass and praise by government officials from mayors to Senators.
But now there has been a change in administrations, and the story seems to have rather suddenly changed. The same jackholes who turned 2020 into year of loss, pain and flames now seem to be on the receiving end of the new administrations militarization of society.
In Portland, Ore., lines of federal agents in camouflage — now working under the Biden administration — blanketed streets with tear gas and unleashed volleys of welt-inducing pepper balls as they confronted a crowd that gathered outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building near downtown. Some in the crowd later burned a Biden-for-President flag in the street.
Huh. I have vague recollection of many on President Baizuo’s side complaining about the use of “chemical weapons” against “mostly peaceful protestors.” I guess it’s ok now.
The feds have come out and unloaded tear gas and pepper balls into the crowd pic.twitter.com/9S14dspcCj
— Mike Baker (@ByMikeBaker) January 21, 2021
There have been a number of arrests. It will be interesting to see if *these* arrests stick or, as was all too common last year, the terrorists and insurrectionists who managed to get arrested were often simply released uncharged… and others were the beneficiaries of funds raised to bail them out. Remember this?
Harris not only provided verbal support for insurrectionists, she helped fund them. Hmm. Articles of impeachment, anyone?
This will doubtless go nowhere:
Certainly far more valid than impeaching Trump for “Russian collusion.”
And we have a new idiot-in-chief to mock.
So majestic. So regal. So many feels.
To protect Biden? Bring Out The Army. To protect cities when they were being burned by thousands of armed insurrectionists and domestic terrorists all through the incessant Moron Riots of 2020? Naw, let it burn.
As is known far and wide, I’m not well known. What little fame I have is largely bound up is the aerospace history research and illustration I’ve done; I’m *hoping* that when the two books I’m working on now get published things will change a bit (well, I hope my *work* gains a bit of fame; I’ve little use for *me* becoming famous). Still: while I toil in obscurity, I find that the products of my labor do have a tendency to pop up here and there. Usually when the diagrams I’ve created are used by someone else there’s some sort of attribution… but not always. There’s little to nothing that can be done about that, of course. Just sorta grit my teeth and move on.
So I watched this video, gritted my teeth and will, I suppose, move on. Note that it uses diagrams I created for Aerospace Projects Review issue V1N3 and US Transport Projects #07. What I suppose was funny was that when I started watching the video I largely *expected* to see my diagrams to show up in it… and, yup, there they are. As of this writing, the video has had about half a million views, not a one of which read where the diagrams came from.
UPDATE: After comms with the video maker: it seems he received the diagrams from someone else claiming them as their own. There have been revisions to the description including proper attribution. If this all pans out, there may be collaborations in the future.
