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Happy Thanksgiving and/or Thursday! Open Thread

Happy Thanksgiving, to everyone who celebrates it! And a very merry Thursday to everyone who doesn’t.

Because I haven’t provided a health update in a while (outside of the comments) I just wanted to reassure everyone that I am still here, and still trying to sort through a bunch of medical issues with the help of assorted doctors, some very competent and others not so much.

The issues I’m facing aren’t lifethreatening, but they are still debilitating enough to keep me from regular posting here. Sorry to be so vague; I’ll offer more details once some of these issues are sorted out a bit more. I’ll return to posting as soon as I am able but I cannot predict when that will be.

I appreciate everyone’s patience and continued support. Thanks!

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LittleLurker
LittleLurker
6 years ago

@GenJones
Sounds like you are pretty well aware of the situation and are weighing your options carefully.

I’m more of a dreamer person (in the negative sense) myself – pretty old already with a PhD thesis in the work, no place to live, no job, no money… and not looking for a partner precisely because of that, I guess. I’d have nothing to offer or contribute atm. (Plus no time, and did I mention no own place to live. ;-))

Anyway, if I imagine myself in your shoes, I’d still probably feel the same way you do. You’re not in any way a “bad guy” and I hope you find a good solution for yourself in this.

LittleLurker
LittleLurker
6 years ago

ETA: Forgot to add. You’re not in any way a bad guy, because – as you seem very well aware – your own dreams are just as important as his dreams

dreemr
dreemr
6 years ago

“your own dreams are just as important as his dreams”

I just really think this bears repeating for emphasis! Well said, @LittleLurker

Katamount (formerly Gussie Jives)
Katamount (formerly Gussie Jives)
6 years ago

Shaun’s Cuphead video was a fascinating microcosm of the same reactionary thinking we saw in Gamergate. Cuphead is not a game I’ve played, but what I have seen looks quite good and the Fleischer-esque animation is breathtaking. But because one journalist didn’t do so well playing it the first time and another had the gall to observe that a lot of the old cartoons that used that animation style involved racist caricatures, suddenly a bunch of imaginary “SJWs” think the game is racist and ableist?

This is the kind of all-or-nothing consumer-knows-best bullshit that holds gaming as a medium back. There’s a conversation to be had about game difficulty and achievement as fulfillment versus seeing the story play out. There’s a conversation to be had about influence and art direction. But those conversations can’t be had because the emotionally immature “Gamer” community isn’t capable of that kind of nuance.

They really do need to untether themselves from this little manufactured “identity” of theirs because it’s definitely not doing them any favours and just making life harder for developers.

Katamount (formerly Gussie Jives)
Katamount (formerly Gussie Jives)
6 years ago

Gah. Laser isn’t just a word, it’s a bloody acronym: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. You can’t just change a letter.

Hehe, I remember my Real Genius.

Mitch Taylor: Laser stands for “Light Amplification By Stimulated Emissions of Radiation. So this is coherent light.

Mitch’s dad: Oh, so it talks, right?

Mitch Taylor: No….
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Jenora Feuer
Jenora Feuer
6 years ago

@Katamount:

(Ahh, just how many names does that particular feline have, anyway? Cougar, florida panther, puma, mountain lion…)

Yes, much of the core of the Gamergate fiasco summarized:

Gamergate: TAKE GAMES SERIOUSLY!

Rest of world: Okay. (Starts performing artistic and social criticism of the same form done to movies and other media, including pointing out that blockbusters are often derivative.)

Gamergate: NOT LIKE THAT!! argle*deaththreats*bargle

Also, I hadn’t even been thinking of Real Genius, and had forgotten that scene. I just knew what it stood for from previous experience. Then again, I used to work in a field where hydrogen masers were a pretty common tool.

Surplus to Requirements, Observer of the Vast Blight-Wing Enstupidation
Surplus to Requirements, Observer of the Vast Blight-Wing Enstupidation
6 years ago

Blockbusters are derivative because nobody will pour the big money needed for the best talent and top-notch production values into something that isn’t. New, original, high concept, untried, etc. = risky, and investors are risk-averse.

So, first you get something with some originality that has lower production values, nobodies in the cast, but does unusually well for a non-blockbuster; then seeing that there’s gold in tham thar hills the big moguls invest in making a blockbuster version of the same premise, with all the polish and big names they can throw at it.

Basically, what you get is that what it’s derivative of ends up having played the role of “the buggy beta version”.

Sometimes though the low production values untried thingy goes huge all on its own though. For example, the original Star Wars film. Made on a budget using parts from off the shelf naval battleship models. The eight or so sequels (ignoring books and TV but counting Rogue One) are the heavily-invested-in derivatives in this instance. When the original goes huge despite a shoestring budget you get direct sequels, rather than a “serial numbers filed off” derivative and then sequels to that.

On the other hand, these days you get the reverse as well: for every blockbuster that performs well one or more “mockbusters” made on a lower budget for cable TV and direct-to-video in an attempt to capitalize on it. Usually with a corny variant name (e.g., “Independence Day-saster”) but occasionally borderline deceptive (“Transmorphers” springs to mind). Sometimes these end up with their own sequels, if they prove popular enough. And then of course there’s the ones that aren’t copied directly off a single specific film but off a genre showing high popularity (“Sharknado”), the subtler satires (“Sharknado 2” and beyond), the more blatant parodies (“Scary Movie” series, etc.), and inevitably the porno “parodies”.

GrumpyOldSocialJusticeMangina
GrumpyOldSocialJusticeMangina
6 years ago

I remember a couple of decades ago that a woman in suburban Maine was shot to death by a hunter while hanging out laundry on her backyard clothesline. Most of the commentary pointed out that she had just moved to Maine from Nebraska and didn’t realize that hanging out laundry in your own backyard in hunting season was a stupid thing to do. (I shit you not.) I remember a case in NH where a boy was shot to death riding his bike down a street. And someone I used to know who worked in a village store that doubled as a deer registration station told me about hunters trying to get cows, horses, and even a collie dog tagged. (You have to register your deer and get a tag to transport it legally.)
I used to hike in hunting season and felt quite safe once I got a few hundred yards from the road. The bad hunters usually didn’t get very far into the woods (too lazy to drag a deer carcass more than a few feet, no skills in finding their way off-road) — some of them would even shoot blindly into the woods in the hope of “scaring something up.” That is why the risk of getting shot by mistake is far higher near roads, counter-intuitive as that may seem. I only met a handful of hunters in the real backcountry. One group was on the Long Trail in Vermont — they were looking for a trophy buck, and they wouldn’t even shoot at a DEER unless it fit that description. Another group was near Rangeley, Maine — they had a camp on a logging road about 4 miles from where you could get to without 4-wheel drive, and their group code was that not only did their quarry have to be a deer, they had to be convinced that they were in position to be able to kill it outright with one shot — not taking any chance of merely wounding it.

The bad hunters seem to think that carrying a rifle down a public road is proof of high-testosterone supermanliness — but I don’t want to even get started on the testosterone bullcrap. Guess I’ll go have some tofu.

Mish of the Catlady Ascendancy
Mish of the Catlady Ascendancy
6 years ago

@Weird Eddie

the hunter was apparently hunting after sundown, which is not only illegal, but mind-numbingly dangerous… obviously.

Yes, and from the story I read, it seems he wasn’t even hunting as such – he just looked outside, saw a “deer”, grabbed his pistol and fired. As one does…

@Katamount

journalists really need to step up to the plate in changing the narrative from “Aren’t these Nazis charming and quirky” to “Sure they might act like regular people, but their online activities actually do end up hurting and in some cases killing people.”

The inimitable Sarah Kendzior recently let fly on this kind of media content. In this clip, she’s not referring to the NYT story, but she might as well be. It’s perfect.
The NYT piece could have highlighted the “normality” of the Nazi guy, in order to emphasise that these people don’t look like scary WWII Nazis, and/or to launch a discussion on the whole banality of evil concept. And perhaps that was the original intent, to be fair.

Mish of the Catlady Ascendancy
Mish of the Catlady Ascendancy
6 years ago

@Katamount,

But because one journalist didn’t do so well playing it the first time and another had the gall to observe that a lot of the old cartoons that used that animation style involved racist caricatures, suddenly a bunch of imaginary “SJWs” think the game is racist and ableist?

That ^^^ is literally it. Dean Takahashi did poorly on a demo play, and some people discussed the original cartoons and their (glaring, undeniable) racism. Shaun is pretty forensic in his research and that was all he could find. But people were yelling for SJWs to top themselves and/or be gassed because of these imaginary sins.
Every review I’ve seen has praised Cuphead, including the difficulty.
As you and Jenora noted, this is GG in miniature – minus the hated women, for which we should be thankful, I guess?

Kat, ambassador of the feminist government in exile
Kat, ambassador of the feminist government in exile
6 years ago

I believe in democracy, not monarchy . . . but damn it, it’s nice to see two people so happy!

Fire Up the Royal Wedding Machine: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Are Officially Engaged
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/world/europe/prince-harry-meghan-markle-engaged.html

tim gueguen
6 years ago

Not surprisingly some people are already calling Prince Harry a cuck and other equally stupid things because he’s marrying a woman whose mother is African-American. But some people already think the Royals are impure anyways. In a long ago era called the 1990s I ran into someone on Usenet that claimed they aren’t really white, since Prince Phillip was supposedly descended from the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, and Pushkin’s great-grandfather was a “100% midnight black Negro from Ethiopia.” There is a bit of mangled truth to this. Pushkin’s great-grandfather on his mother’s side was Abram Petrovich Gannibal, an African who was taken into slavery as a young child by the Ottomans. His birthplace is unclear, but some current scholars believe it was in what is now Cameroon. He ended up in the court of Peter the Great, who made him his godson, and was a highly educated member of the court of Peter’s daughter Elizabeth. Pushkin’s great-granddaughter Nadejada was Phillip’s aunt by marriage, and several other members of the British nobility are descended from Pushkin, and hence Gannibal.

Z&T
Z&T
6 years ago

@ GenJones and @ Little Lurker,

I can relate.

I have to re arrange my entire life and I’m not sure what to do.

All options look bad, complicated, or out of reach.

At least I only have to worry about myself and there aren’t too many assholes breathing down my neck.

So, there’s that anyway.

epitome of incomprehensibility

@Jenora Feuer, re:

I’m too much of a compulsive editor and tweaker; I can’t seem to do the streamed first draft you need to do for NaNoWriMo.

Me too! I start out with something and a few months later almost all my characters’ names are changed. (“Oh yeah, Harriet is called Stacey now.”)

That reminds me, I’m feeling happy because someone I’m taking a small-group creative writing class with has been encouraging about my plan for a book. She’s an excellent teacher, and I’ll miss her if she has to move to the States in the spring – she might be going there for a job. Of course, I wish her all the best!

Oh yes – I think “dreamy” things, whether business plans or creative projects, don’t need to be full-time, especially at first. Plus, it can really help to have an outside job or class or volunteering experience. I know my proofreading/tutoring experience – hell, even the boring admin stuff I did before! – has been good for my writing.

And if someone tries to guilt you into supporting them, saying they won’t achieve their goals otherwise – well, that’s just unfair!

Mish of the Catlady Ascendancy
Mish of the Catlady Ascendancy
6 years ago

@tim gueguen

My favourite part of the “Prince Harry is a cuck” is the people bemoaning the loss of the royal pedigree (their words not mine). I’m torn between
(1) there’s no such thing you idiots have you even looked at the family trees of these people not to mention all the out of wedlock kiddies
& (2) Hapsburg chins. That is all.

weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee
weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee
6 years ago

What royal pedigree? I thought they were part reptilian alien anyway?

Sarcasm, but that’s a real theory that the Coast to Coast AM and/or David Icke fan types subscribe to.

Shadowplay
6 years ago

Seems like a nice lass. Got her head screwed on right (like Kate does). The new generation is breeding for common sense and brains this time around 😛
Harry and William turned out ok, which is a pleasant surprise given their mother was as thick as two short planks and their father weren’t much better in the brains department.

We should trust the long range planners of the Firm. They know genetics! 😛

Anonymous
Anonymous
6 years ago

First, I wish to start by wishing the blog owner good health.

Second, @Kat –

Britain is, in reality, a republic or a democracy, with a thin veneer of monarchy. The queen and the princes have no real power. In fact that is just the point: to have a figurehead so as to stop *anyone else* from gaining too much power.

Third, @tim –

Yeah,, what a *total loser cuck* the prince is: young, rich, good-looking, and engaged to a beautiful woman. *Clearly* inferior to self-decalred “fighters for white men’s rights”, who, from the looks of things, seem mostly to be unemployable virgins living in mom’s basement.

The whole “manosphere”, “men going their own way”, “incel” movement is obviously a case of massive sour-grapes rationalization, deriding what one desperately wants but cannot get.

Shadowplay
6 years ago

Oh dear. This will not end well.

(Salon link, if you don’t give them clicks)

Bernie Sanders could be running again in 2020

Also, to get your tempers going: A Survivor’s Defense of Al Franken

The second one bugs the shit out of me.

Kevin
Kevin
6 years ago

Congratulations to Harry and Meghan. And the Establishment aren’t losing it over an American divorcee this time.
Cooking tip re chopping onions from further up-thread. Wearing a gasmask stops your eyes watering. Looks odd, but we can’t have everything.

Kat, ambassador of the feminist government in exile
Kat, ambassador of the feminist government in exile
6 years ago

@Anon

@Kat –

Britain is, in reality, a republic or a democracy, with a thin veneer of monarchy. The queen and the princes have no real power.

Yes, I know. But as an American I feel obliged to point out that I don’t want the monarchy back.

I am unlike that other American, Sarah Palin, who (at least allegedly) didn’t know that Queen Elizabeth wasn’t in charge of Great Britain. And also (allegedly) had never heard of Margaret Thatcher.

Anonymous
Anonymous
6 years ago

@Kat –

I do not know about Palin, but I just happen to be reading about Robbentrop. It is clear that he was sure the royalty and nobility run Britain, and mistook lord so-and-so’s polite words in an embassy reception about not wanting war as “proof” the “real rulers” of Britain “will not fight”, and so his boss can go ahead an d invade

Pie
Pie
6 years ago

@Kat

Yes, I know. But as an American I feel obliged to point out that I don’t want the monarchy back.

Political dynasties are quite popular and a fair number of folk who voted for trump seem real unhappy that he doesn’t have unconstestable supreme executive power. Also Puerto Rico, taxation without representation, mumble mumble.

I was probably going somewhere with this, but I forget where. I’m sure you get the gist.

Weird (and tired of trumplings) Eddie
Weird (and tired of trumplings) Eddie
6 years ago

calling Prince Harry a cuck and other equally stupid things because he’s marrying a woman whose mother is African-American

… or because he’s a “handsome prince”…
… or because he’s wealthy…
… or because he’s….

what-th’-fuck-EVER

Hippodameia
Hippodameia
6 years ago

Some of Franken’s defenders disgust me. He thought the idea of assaulting a sleeping woman was so funny he wanted to be photographed pretending to do it.

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