There’s been more than one philosopher who have posed the hiddenness of God as an argument against His existence. If you’re a strict materialist, it makes sense that you would expect sense data, at the very least, of God to begin a framework of proof for God’s existence. Some skeptics argue that an ideal God … Someone Steal This Book Idea: The Obvious God
I swear I had this up here before for safekeeping, as I usually do, but it went the way of the buffalo. It’s back! 8 oz dark chocolate 1/8 tsp chipotle or cayenne pepper 1/2 cup heavy cream big pinch of salt cocoa to dust 1. Chop up chocolate and place in bowl, add the … Recipe: Hot Chocolate Stones
This was sung by a singer named Eri Kawai for the game Soma Bringer. I don’t think she’s in a minor key here, but it still gives me some bluish mystery vapors. It turns out Kawai died the same year this game was released, at 43, from liver cancer. She died on August 5, 2008, … A Sad Song
I made this on Valentine’s Day. You can say it: it looks like a junior-year home ec project. The reasons for this are myriad: 1. It was the first cake I ever made from scratch. 2. Since it’s paleo, it doesn’t use normal flour but coconut flour, honey, and fruits. It bakes and looks very … Photo: Paleo Raspberry Coconut Cake
An email to Jill, re: the “you know it’s true” statements when (trying to) discuss disagreeable topics. tl;dr version: it’s not an argument but an actual claim to knowledge that could be legitimate, depending on how well one person knows another. A simple reminder that clams to knowledge can be legitimate through means other than … “You know it’s true.”
Scott Van Pelt Fired Back At ESPN Haters No cable and reading books all the time? Sounds like heaven to me. Sean Parker unloads on Facebook “exploiting” human weakness It’s not called Faceborg without a good reason. Vegetarian Men Are More Depressed – Are Steaks A Treatment? It might not be a bad idea, but … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 30
Happy New Year. I started the Radix Fidem forum with some help from Ed. It’s more or less an online church community; a very long-term project set at a simmering temperature for now. It’s an oddball concept, for sure, but a church that “exists” online can’t be the weirdest thing you could find on the … The Radix Fidem Forum is Live
Hollywood and celebrity culture are Satanic dumpster fires in dire need of wiping off the face of the earth, despite producing a few good movies here and there. I have doubts that all of the #MeToo claims of harassment are all true (thought plenty of them aren’t necessarily related to celebrities but upper-level executive-types), especially … #MeepToo
Spoilers, etc. “9” came out on 9/9/2009 (heh), and was somewhat overlooked because the director, Shane Acker, was a no-name nerd, and although Tim Burton was a producer, his name wasn’t prominent enough in the pre-prod. The film does come off as Burton-esque, and part of its unappeal to some audiences was that it couldn’t … Two Reasons the Film “9” Was Good, One Way It Could’ve Been Better.
I posted a link to this video in one of my Links of Possible Relevance before, but watching it again recently, it struck me how non-rock-or-metal-live-show-as-video it is. Consider how most of these types of videos go: There are multiple cameras, usually far back near the house’s soundboard, side stage, or in the photo pit … Speaking of Subverting Things, Periphery’s “The Way the News Goes” Subverts Metal Videos
I’m not a bodybuilding expert but this comment left on a subbreddit called “Natty or not?” sums up the state of commercial and professional bodybuilding and fitness. Look after the quote for some defined words that may be unfamiliar to you. Everyone you will see online selling you a workout supplement or program (both of … Your Natural Physical Limits
Spoilers ahoy! A lot can happen in a fictional universe in two and half hours, and director Rian Johnson took the opportunity to subvert a lot of the established narrative rules of the Star Wars franchise. Monumental things happen in interpersonal relationships, while large-scale events are drawn out with explicit detail. Granted, this happened in … Review: Star Wars: The Last Jedi Subverts the Star Wars Universe, Makes Me Use Two Colons in This Post Title
I’m posting this here for my own benefit, because I make these a lot and can never remember the recipe. But more importantly, since the original site that holds this recipe, like most cooking sites, is stuffed to the gills with browser-crippling ads. I’m a stickler for giving online credit when it’s warranted, but I’m … Recipe: Paleo Sweet Potato Pancakes
Warning: tons of photos! Click here for the photos from the comic con earlier in the year. Jyn Erso, in the Scarif disguise: Dr. Doom: Daughter DiNitto on the left, as Keith from Voltron, with Pidge: A blurry photo of yours truly with R2-D2. See way at the end of the post for a video … Steel City Comic Con 2017 Photos (December)
One of the beating hearts of material philosophy is the strain to derive universals from particulars: i.e., what could we derive about phenomena, a posteriori from experiencing instances of observed phenomena? This goal might be a good fit for science but in ethical philosophy its application can get dicey. “How ought we to live?” is … Gay Jesus Cake
Don’t be deceived, children—”pop metal” shouldn’t evince audible visions of Fred Durst in JNCOs. The title doesn’t refer to nu-metal but to a certain aesthetic of songwriting. By “pop metal”—or “pop” anything—I mean a song in a specific genre that can easily be translated into a standard pop song…one that can easily be translated into … The Perfect Pop Metal Song
It’s the calculation problem. Always has, always will be: By arbitrarily changing existing markets for internet service, regulators risk corrupting the fragile preconditions necessary for firms and consumers to calculate rationally, and the incentives necessary to lure investment and risk-laden innovative enterprises. The result could be excess demand in the market for internet service if … Net Neutrality Is Still Retarded
Taken from the front door of my brother-in-law’s house. Pretty sure those are stratocumulus clouds. Click photo to embiggen it. Trivia: my son’s first model rocket launch landed the rocket into the top of that tree you see on the right.
I recently subscribed to a bunch of blogs that deal with UX trends and best practices. One of those blogs is one on the Mockplus product site, which is a prototyping tool for web apps. Normally I access my subscriptions on my phone, through the Feedly app. 90% of the those times, I don’t hit … Blog About UX Has Really Bad UX
These clippings are from a newspaper called The Boston Sunday Advertiser, from February 15, 1931. It was a small society-type newspaper that had articles on theater shows and various local events, stories, comics, contests, etc. The front page story on Washington and Lincoln seemed out of place. I had thought this was the Sunday version … Really Old Newspaper Clippings
Original, cringe-worthy, video here, about some limp noodles from BuzzFeed and their t-count test results. But the important thing is that the UX design centers of my brain were delighted that the width dimension of their names matched their comparative testosterone level results with ridiculous accuracy:
Jay DiNitto – LinkedIn Profile Don’t click that link—it’s broken. I took my deleted my profile since I saw no point in it. “Old Life In Your Way stuff” YouTube playlist I uploaded a bunch of old material from my old band, with varying production quality. The videos I play on are the “Skies Broke … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 29
1. Per Plantinga, and some forms of natural selection, ceteris paribus, life selects for organisms that adapt towards survival cues, not for truth. Plantinga frames this as an argument against evolutionary naturalism. This is not false, but could be true in other cases than have nothing to do with theism. 2. The survival vs truth … Human Minds Prefer Survival More Than Truth
Japanese-style public service ads in LA metro Cute, but it feels the novelty could wear off quick. The real reason why network ‘neutrality’ is impossible Interesting technical reasons why this idea is a nightmare. It will cause shortages of service, just like every other time bureaucrats try to make things “fair.” Twitter is done with … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 28
Minor spoilers ahoy. Blade Runner 2049 is getting ridiculously high ratings, which disturbed me because people like a lot of crap I don’t like and I’m in general agreement with these ratings. What to do? Subconsciously (or not), a lot of the praise may be from the visuals, which isn’t an off-the-mark assessment since films … Review: Blade Runner 2049
You can see it a few times in the Sherlock Holmes clip, the first one, at the 1:37 and 1:50 – 1:54 marks, and also some parts during the fighting scenes after that. It seems the same effect is used in the second video below, from Elysium, but to a much milder degree, from 0:35 … Crowdsourcing: Anyone Know What This Camera Effect Is?
There’s been more than a few things written about Jason Aldean, the pop-country artist that played during the recent Las Vegas shooting incident, that has passed in front of my eyes. Some of the more notable things written involve Aldean, his band, and/or the production crew being willing conspirators in the shooting, or at least … About That Band Playing During the Las Vegas Shooting
A mostly boring, semi-technical post…on the Internet, no less. I have two new Javascript projects done up at GitHub. randomNumberGenerator (repository here) Returns an array of numbers, chosen from a range. Granted, plenty of other developers have done this, but I wanted the mental exercise of coding it myself. I found myself needing random numbers … Two New Javascript Projects Done
What Are Heuristics? A very brief but good overview: the “world violence” ratio the video mentions is a good example of the spotlight fallacy. But the unspoken conclusion is that heuristics are bad at knowing large scale phenomena because human beings qua human beings are bad at knowing large scale phenomena. When to Trust the … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 27
The subject of clones has been coming up too much in my life in recent moment for me to ignore. I half-wish God would insert a literal clone in my life for various reasons, but that might cause more problems than solve them. Here’s a numbered list, in no significant order, of related things. 1. … Clones All the Time
Christine’s comment on my last post inspired me to throw out some song lyrics, as a type of poetry appreciation. The video for the song is at the bottom of this post, but don’t click play unless you’re prepared. At the very least, you can admire Mark deSalvo’s artwork in the video thumbnail, which appears … Other People Write: Advent of a Miracle by Strongarm
Men, arrayed on rays, vertex to vertex Reach across the plane with probisci Sleek and curious but blade-grass frail A lateral-diagonal intermingling God, as capstone, pours it downward Perpendicularity, liquid, and unpredicatable Few could apprehend from whence to where Most retract their probing lines, prophesying danger Only a few stay their hand to catch the … Story: Platonic Solid
I re-watched Alien: Covenant the other day, and I was floored to realize that it nearly passed the Jay Test, wherein 90% of all the human deaths that occur are female. I say “nearly” as a relative descriptor, since it was so close to being 50% of all deaths, which is far and away a … Alien: Covenant Nearly Passes the Jay Test
Jay at 40 I recently turned 40, so like all beautiful young women I took a bad selfie with no filters or edits. Enjoy. Over-40s most at risk in UK’s laziness epidemic, says PHE Speaking of middle age… Starbucks Invite-a-Friend Interstitial Attn: Starbucks. I think you’re okay. Your Sumatra K-Cups, brewed at 6 oz and served … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 26
Azure had a comment on “Monoculture and Diversity“: I was thinking of Romans 10:12 – “For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him…” And maybe I’ll throw in Exodus 22:21 – “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you … Monoculture and Diversity, Redux
“Don’t send a rabbit to kill a fox.” -Chief Daisuke Aramaki, Ghost in the Shell (2017)
For reference, see Ed’s post here, summarizing ANE (Ancient Near East) feudalist social structure. Noragami is about gods and their work in Japan as they battle phantoms that plague the country’s citizens. The gods are essentially humans in form, with obvious special powers, mostly invisible but can appear to anyone if they decide to. All … Feudalism in Noragami
Ed has a great post (mirrored on archive.org) on modern Western diversity schema, which reminded me of what I was trying to say here, but from a different perspective and vocabulary. I left a comment there, the bulk of which is copied below (added numbers for clarity*): 1. The world is diverse (given, self-evident) 2. … Monoculture and Diversity
In this post. Well, mostly nevermind. Mostly. As the way things are going now, you really can get a domain taken away from you, if you are known to have Very Bad Ideas™ and incite violence. Most of you that read this won’t need to worry about that since my readership aren’t of that stock … Nevermind What I Said About Buying a Domain
“Do make yourselves at home as best you can in this dire necropolis.” -David, Alien: Covenant
Look at this downtrodden robot and rejoice at your human superiority (for now) The poor dear probably realized his epistemology was more limited than humans’. Guest Post by Yakov Merkin: The Dark Side of “Badass” Women Official YouTube Blog: An update on our commitment to fight terror content online Whenever an NGO with “dialogue” in … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 25
This song is a blast from my past, reminding me of my days in Philadelphia. The post title is somewhat inaccurate. Traditionally, an album closer is one of the artist’s stronger songs from the recording session, since they don’t want to leave a bad parting impression. With indie bands, the requirement is more optional. You’ll … An Album’s Closing Song I Actually Like
The fountain at Point State Park, the point (heh) at which the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela rivers meet in Pittsburgh.
I say “almost” in the title because what Sherlock mostly does, in the game and in lore, is induction. Deduction is logic to determine the categories and properties of objects, and how they relates. Simply: 1 All men are mortal 2 Socrates is a man 3 Therefore, Socrates is mortal The logic Sherlock, and what … Logic Done Right (Almost) in Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter
This scene still gives me the chills—the English version more so than the Japanese, because of the actor’s (Tom Wyner) performance in voicing the damaged android. Generally, the subtitled versions are better because they are more accurate to the original Japanese, and they often are better performers. Sometimes, as in this case, the English actor … Project 2501’s Speech
…Because computers would be the ones revolting. Computers aren’t much different than robots, fundamentally: they gather input, process it, and “do something” as an output. This final output, in the computer’s situation, is really just making pixels light up in a certain way on a monitor, whereas robots typically output by moving in three-dimensional space. … The Robot Revolution Would Have Already Happened By Now, And It Wouldn’t Happen Anyway
I found a solution for shuffling videos between multiple YouTube playlists, in case anyone is in a rare situation where they need to do this. For some reason, YouTube caps the video count at 200 when you embed a playlist on another site, though the playlist may contain way more that 200. Embedding playlists also … YouTube Playlist Shuffler
Consider the source (the video will start at the beginning part of the conversation, for proper context): Molyneux is an atheist who is 150% invested in the Western philosophical legacy, stretching all the was back to the big three—Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Admitting that reason and evidence isn’t the panacea it’s purported to be is … “Reason and evidence does sweet fuck-all”
I rewatched this movie recently, and I was reminded of when I first saw this scene when I was 10 years old or so. It was the late 80s and CGI effects weren’t what they are today, so this wasn’t too far off from the state of the art for the time (the film was … That Star Trek Wormhole Scene
Back when I did freelance web design (when “web design” was a term still used) I’d always tell my musician-type clients to buy a domain name. This was a time when bands relied heavily on mp3.com, Myspace, and Purevolume to get their music online. My advice was based on a long-term survival strategy, since sites … Public Service Announcement: Buy a Domain Name
The story below is a work of fiction. Initially, the object was only perceptible to the array of sensitive instruments focused onto the area, though it soon became visible to those gathered: astronomers, linguists, physicists. It emerged from the blankness of dead space, like a chick from its shell, at the exact coordinates and time … Story: Duality Erased
Warning: lots of music here. Spotify Sucks It does. Just let me hear the song, dude. Fleshkiller – Parallel Kingdom (Official Lyric Video) This is a welcome change to a lot of the Christian metal that’s been coming out lately. 70000TONS OF METAL – The World’s Biggest Heavy Metal Cruise This looks like a fun … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 24
“We’re meant to die. That’s what makes anything about us matter. Living like this is torture. We’re just ghosts.” -Æon Flux
Here’s a video I made of my fidget spinner making some interesting Fibonacci patterns on my laptop screen.
I think Jill took it down (or it takes itself down after a while), but she mentioned me in one of her Periscope broadcasts. Thank ye! Top 10 Science Fiction Films of All Time Pretty good list. I personally would take Contact out—I like the movie but the tropey characterizations were almost unwatchable—and Prestige, since … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 23
For all you pareidolia fans. I took this photo, of a Jurassic Park video game. Click to embiggen: The original. Hopefully more adept humorists can create better captions:
The story below is a work of fiction. “You and your inventions!” Talia shouted at Thomas, as she blasted away a few more of the large, crab-like, training room drones with her pulse rifle. “And now of all times!” “Those were the last ones, I think, for now,” Thomas reported from his crouched position next … Story: T.H.O.W.A.C.K.
I went to a wedding this weekend, and the silence of no sanctus bells during the consecration was noticeable. Why not an app for that? There’s nothing in Google Play nor the Apple Store. Sanctus bells aren’t cheap, and they pack a loud punch. The enterprising altar boy can easily connect to the church’s PA … App Idea: Sanctus Bells
These were published way back when I had a Xanga account. I was totally on point with these. Not sure what happened to the #1. Click to embiggen and make bigly.
From Chapter 2 of Oliver Twist: The members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out at once, what ordinary folks would never have discovered—the poor people liked it! It was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer … Dickens on Philosophers
The Great Chain of Linking, Part 2 Please welcome Graham to the world of curated link list creation on the Internet, as though there are no other places to find links such as these. Moist Meter: Wonder Woman The best review of Wonder Woman. Don’t watch it if you’re scared of bad words. The Truth … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 22
Because he thought having a protagonist tell the whole story, through dialogue, that should’ve just been left as narration was a good idea. And he thought it was another good idea for the protagonist-narrator speak just like Joseph Conrad writes, which is nearly impossible given for anyone, much less someone not trained in elocution, large-content … Slapping Joseph Conrad’s Editor in the Neck
The story below is a work of fiction. He was on edge all week from finals. Miko had sensed it, and urged him up to the hilltop on a cool weekday night on a break, away from the campus lights. He watched, weary and passive, as she assembled the telescope, her pale deft hands grasping … Story: Faster Than Light
Virgin Mobile towers are down. I heard that things won’t be back up for another 72 hours…so no calls or texts if you’re on their network. VM’s site doesn’t mention it at all. Here’s a screenshot of the outages, from Down Detector. Notice the large red monstrosity over my area, Pittsburgh. Regardless, the outage looks … Public Service Announcement: Yes, Virgin Mobile Soiled Its Drawers
The story below is a work of fiction. With the adults, and most of the neighborhood kids, occupied with the block party outside, John fumbled with the lighter in his bedroom. He finally managed to keep it lit without burning his fingers, and ignited the cigarette that stood straight out of Victoria’s mouth. Chris looked … Story: It’s No Wonder
You don’t need to know much about the characters, or the series itself, to appreciate this little filler episode (embedding the video is disabled, hence the direct link), showcasing the evolving psychology of boredom. I don’t even mind the “dopey, good-natured male vs exasperated, dutiful female vs mischievous kid” trope. One thing to know: Vincent … “Shave it.”
From A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: I rather wished I had gone some other road. This was not the sort of experience for a statesman to encounter who was planning out a peaceful revolution in his mind. For it could not help bringing up the unget-aroundable fact that, all gentle cant and philosophizing … A Reign of Terror and a Guillotine
A belt clip holster for cell phones, attached a retractable draw string, so that the phone is always attached to the clip, and subsequently the hip. The idea is to prevent accidentally leaving the phone somewhere, which happens to users who have minds that are always in some other place (like mine). Some high-level specs: … Someone Steal This Idea and Do a Kickstarter
This post was originally titled: “Don’t Tell Me How To Feel About My Own Body,” quotes included. Though that was an obvious appropriation of retarded activist-speak, I couldn’t bear having it so prominently on display. Satirizing activists is a few degrees lower on the cringe-meter than an actual activist, and I don’t have the perpetual … The Epistemology of the Man-flu
I did another hackathon. See photo below for photographic results. I somehow got more sleep than past hackathons, but that’s not saying much. The local news covered the event (PS- I’m not a CMU student as the title implies). You can try to watch the video but it’s Flash-based and the site takes forever to … Sleepathon
The story below is a work of fiction. All thirty employees gathered in the carpeted lobby for the first public beta play-through of the game. Becky, the project manager, won—she would say “lost,” after the fact—the shortest straw and was player one. Silence during the opening cinematic, and a quick cut to the gameplay, an … Story: The Soldier Has No Gun
From Ethan Frome: It was during their night walks back to the farm that he felt most intensely the sweetness of this communion. He had always been more sensitive than the people about him to the appeal of natural beauty. His unfinished studies had given form to this sensibility and even in his unhappiest moments … “Orion down yonder”
Due to screen fatigue…at least in the United Kingdom: “I wouldn’t say that the ebook dream is over but people are clearly making decisions on when they want to spend time with their screens,” says Stephen Lotinga, chief exeutive of the Publishers Association, which published its annual yearbook on Thursday. “There is generally a sense … Ebook Sales Trend Downward
The Wisecrack Youtube channel has a great video on the philosophy of Ghost in the Shell (the original one). It’s actually a very Western movie because it’s Hegelian through and through, and Hegel is as Western philosophy as it gets. I left a comment on the video that I will cross-post here, for those interested. … The Philosophy of Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Mustafa sat proudly at the back of the rock outcropping, a paw—with just enough claw extended make the warning explicit—held firmly on the back of Sarabi’s neck. The mandrill, that neurotic mystic, walked out to the edge of the outcropping and held up Mustafa’s infant son, Simba, for all the gathered animals on the ground … Story: How It Should’ve Gone
The story below is a work of fiction. Alice was the person in the audience least willing to be called upon, so naturally the magician volunteered her for his first trick. Seated on the stage chair, being so close to the magician—she forgot his name but he looked like a Mark—wasn’t as embarrassing as she … Story: Magicland
Just what the title says. UPDATE: Here are some photos from the December comic con. Someone from something, and Bucky Barnes from Captain America/Avengers: Freddy Krueger: People from a thing: New-ish Batman and old-school Robin: A version of Wonder Woman: Indiana Jones and yours truly: A Doctor Who (I think), some Harry Potter person, and … Steel City Comic Con 2017 Photos
Jill has decided to serialize her new book, The Minäverse, and you can read the first chapter here. Jill was kind enough to send me an ARC* and it’s definitely a good ‘un if you like absurdist sci-fi, a la Douglas Adams and that other author of that one book I can’t recall right now. … The Minäverse by Jill Domschot
tl;dr – a very good retelling of the original Possible spoilers below. See my previous posts here and here about the film. Thoughts, in no particular order: 1- Visually and aesthetically impeccable. Director Rupert Sanders did an excellent job of portraying a society figuring out its relationship with acute, mechanical, physical augmentation. He skirts the … Ghost in the Shell (2017) Review
“Always the same, and now all this. No more stones. No more spears. No more slings. No more swords. No more weapons! No more systems! No more superpowers. You can fire your arrows from the Tower of Babel, but you can never strike God!”
Gamification of Safe Driving Gamify car dashboards, or an app itself on your phone, that rewards safe and efficient driving, accompanied by a small social media framework. There can be badges for keeping your vehicle on its eco-efficiency setting, days without a ticket or accident, for not speeding up or braking suddenly, for taking more … Two and a Half App Ideas
One of the funniest lines I’ve heard in a video game.
tl;dr – I don’t want bread Stop with all the sandwiches for breakfast. Not everything has to be in sandwich form; you’re not leaving some moral culinary duty unfilled if you don’t serve sandwiches all the time. If you really must have sandwiches on the menu, the very least you can do is offer normal … Attn: Restaurants That Serve Breakfast, Please Take Seriously and Enjoy this Unreasonable Rant
Astronomical distances are unfathomable—literally, inconceivable—so much so that we need ultra-instrumentation to calculate them, which in turn dump their data streams into analog displays for these distances can be “visualized.” Imagine yourself traveling through space. Scary, isn’t it? There’s a reason why some of the more accurate depictions of life in space in science fiction … The Epistemology of Large-Scale Distances
They forced him into a blind date, claiming that her fetish for chefs would warm her to him. She was described as a Kirsten Dunst lookalike, which in his mental filters was synonymous with “looks like Kirsten Dunst plus 50 lbs,” or “looks like Kirsten Dunst with severe exotropia,” or “looks like Kirsten Dunst with … Third Person Dreams Means I Have Disassociative Issues
“Doesn’t anyone have any more missiles!?” Nibiru is the real, cosmic, deal. I know this because all of the theories of Internet-connected folks concerning its arrival into the Milky Way don’t posit the planet crashing directly into Earth like two perfect billiard balls. If it was contrived it would be aiming straight into us, right … The Earth’s Poles Shifted and All You Read Was This Blog Post
Plenty of metal band releases nowadays feature a track, usually in the middle or at the end, that’s a little quieter or more contemplative, probably to break the sonic elephant-gun onslaught of everything else you’re hearing/have heard. If the metal band is Christian, this track is the time to let listeners know you are, in … One Weird Trick for a Worship Band to Make Their Album Go Platinum
There’s this video, and then there’s comments I’ve read all over that go something like this: 1) “So weird to see the Death Star upside down,” or something equally as innocent and merely observational. And someone replies with: 2) “you idiot theres no upside down in space its all relative you probably like the prequels … The Epistemology of Orientation in Space
The canary represented Arrival‘s Louise Banks and forshadowed both her ability to communicate with the heptapods and forsee the future—just as canaries were used in coal mines to “predict and communicate” death for humans in mineshafts if the air toxins rose to lethal levels. The canary was a purely narrative device, and not there to … The Meaning of the Canary in Arrival
I have four project repositories up on my GitHub account. Check them here. They are unexciting to non-software engineer types, aside from the statesGame one, and even then there’s not a huge, sexy “wow” factor. I put them up because I realized I have hardly any Javascript-heavy examples of anything I’ve done out there, and … My GitHub Projects
I went to a gastropub restaurant called The Yard last night. But before I went The Yard, I went to The Website, AKA: The Yard’s website. And, God bless them, they have their full menu in glorious, responsive HTML format—no PDF funny business in sight. As a UX bonus, the first thing on their front … A Non-PDF Restaurant Menu
“You wanna make a baby?” “Yes. Yeah.” It’s not prurient or gratuitous dialogue in Arrival; it’s practically the linchpin for the protagonist’s arc. It may even be the first movie I’ve seen where the “god” vanishes for no seeming reason, instead of arriving at the last minute for the resolution.
What sub-Saharan jungle spirit possesses an Internet-accessing person to organize and produce a video like this? Maybe the same spirit that inhabits people who would sit and watch it? Asking for a friend.
I get super irritated below. Periscope F*ck you, Periscope. I’m not creating a Twitter account just to access you. A shameless scalzification No one who Tweets out the phrase entirely unsubtly should be anywhere near G.K. Chesterton. Goodreads Blog Post: If Belle Were on Goodreads, She’d Probably Act a Lot Like Emma Watson No. Please, … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 21
Opening scene: he’s walking in a political march, titled “Women’s Stuff and More Stuff,” with tuneless piano plucking sounds in the background. Jump cut to him watching obviously foreign or mixed-race porn on his laptop without a trace of guilt on his face. There might be some internal dialogue about how he’s doing it in … Enjoy the Sentiment – Another Coca-Cola Commercial
For his 40th they gave him folders of printed photos and transparencies. There was a machine, from a different era, where he had to insert the photos to be projected for everyone’s amusement. He had to do it himself; that was part of the fun. Some photos were animated. Others, inappropriate, and not in the … Taste the Memories – A Coca-Cola Commercial
Interesting sci-fi series that doesn’t rely on endless action candy to be appealing. Requires at least two viewings. If it seems a little dark—literally, not bright—it’s not you, nor is it YouTube. That’s just how it was produced. The series can be streamed on Hulu and the darkness is there, too. The series can’t be … Ergo Proxy – Complete Series
Shut Up About ‘Whitewashing’ in Ghost in the Shell 2017 Good idea, since “cultural appropriation” is usually a one-way criticism. I didn’t like the idea of Motoko played by an Anglo actress for different reasons, but the narrator makes a decent case against it. A related video. A Spell to Bind Donald Trump and All … Links of Possible Relevance, Part 20
Despite being a Supreme Court judge, Potter Stewart opined some wise words: I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [“hard-core pornography”], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the … It Is What It Is, Except When It Might Not Be