By David Futrelle
Sorry I haven’t been posting much lately. Been feeling like shit, and a resurgent sleep disorder has left me utterly wiped out most of the time for the last week or so. Doing my best to get a handle on it all.
In the meantime, here are some creepy pics of Trump and His Gang (both current and former members). Also consider this an open thread. (No trolls!)
And one last Trump, just for the hell of it.
@Surplus to Requirements – Cool, thanks! Yes, the idea seems to relate to M-theory and other aspects of superstring theory. The clearest summary I found (by searching Wikipedia like a lazy person) was in this section of the supergravity page. And people seem to be disagreeing on whether the 11-dimension model is totally discredited or still useful.
Liu might flesh out those ideas more in the next two books – I’ve just read the first one of the trilogy.
Oh yes, and my superstring wiki-walk led me to finally understand the “p-brane/pea brain” pun in one of YouTube’s “Epic Rap Battles of History.” Truly, I am gaining more knowledge of the universe. 😀
A few days ago legendary comics artist Bill Sienkiewicz had a few things to say about ComicsGate and their adherents. It wasn’t very nice – to them.
https://www.themarysue.com/bill-sienkiewicz-comicsgate/
Second item: Niantic, the company that puts out the Pokémon GO game, has put in a filter for renaming your ‘mons so they can’t have offensive names like Metal Dildoe or Douche Bag or whatever. (Evidently this was done after they got complaints from users who saw what exactly some of their PoGO friends actually named their buddies, as near as I can figure it out.)
Unfortunately their filter is a little too strict on how it bans certain text. It looks at the first four letters of the name, and bans based off of that. Which means that someone wanting to rename their jigglypuff ‘mon “‘Jigglypuff98%” can’t do so, because jigg —> jiggly —> ‘naughty’ things boobs do when moving. Same thing with weedle and licktitong, and some others. Heck, I’ve heard of the filter banning the word Spike because it thinks the first four letters of that word is a slur.
Presumably Niantic will adjust that filter soon so stuff like a Pokémon’s actual species name will pass, but meanwhile, >.<
Apologies for the double post, but I found another post on the Mary Sue about Trump’s pettiness over John McCain’s death:
https://www.themarysue.com/trump-mccain-flag/
Dude, get over yourself, will ya? Yeesh.
@epitome
I love the 3 body problem too!
Also thinking it’s high time I read some NK Jesmin. She recommended by so many people whose opinions I respect and loathed by Vox Day and his gang. So that’s another author to add to my pile.
I kind of love how CNN has no fucks left to give regarding Trump. They just flat-out say when he’s lying. Makes me happy in the pettiest way.
Personal note: our oven went out a few days ago. I was able to determine the problem (igniter), went out, bought an igniter, took the oven apart (partially), removed busted part, installed new part. Feeling very grown-up right now. It’s especially helpful because we can use the money I saved to have our refrigerator repaired.
I was telling my therapist about it earlier today; she feels that doing things I know to be useful is a good cognitive behavioral technique for dealing with my depression. She’s also introduced me to existential therapy, which I hadn’t heard of and which suits my style of thinking quite well. So glad I’ve got an HMO that covers this.
While I don’t suffer from recurring sleepless night anymore, I just had such a night yesterday, waking up every hour or so, confusing the end of my dream with reality for a small amount of time each time.
Strangely, working efficiently is a bit hard today.
Ah, the Scunthorpe Problem. Not the first time it’s hit Pokemon (hello, Cofagrigus!), but always funny nonetheless.
In other news, today’s Male Feminist™ meltdown is coming courtesy of Michael Ian Black.
@SFHC
Saw that. Ugh. Not to mention, it’s over whether Louis CK should be able to come back into comedy and the thing is, his return was non-consensual to his audience. It was sprung on them as a “surprise.” Which shows that, no, he does not deserve to come back if he still doesn’t understand that consent is needed.
So disappointing. Not surprising though.
I get that it’s hard to come to terms with the news that someone you like and admire did terrible things. As a Minnesota progressive, I honestly couldn’t even read or talk about Al Franken for a while. It’s still tough. I was so gutted. But work through that shit in private and really come to terms with it. Don’t wait for it to blow over and decide it’s time for everyone to forgive the offender.
In other news, it is no fun trying to bus to a suburban office park you’ve never been to before when it’s raining for a job interview. I think it went well though.
L
Retroactive good luck!
@Redsilkphoenix
Nope, still don’t give a rat’s ass, or see why anyone worth a damn does. There’s a million things Trump has said and done that show his pettiness, and a million things he’s said and done that hurt vulnerable people. His behaviour here is neither new nor different. And I don’t give a flaming fuck if a fascist war criminal doesn’t get a public asskissing after his death; doing so makes me think less of a president (to the extent that’s actually possible).
@ Robert,
I have been doing many house chores too, good on you for fixing your oven! I am trying to gear up for serious work here because I need to do a thorough cleaning, and I should pull out my fridge and vacuum off the back.
I have heard too that most fridge problems are electrical. You might be able to diagnose it and find a fix online. Me personally, I am terrified of fooling with electrical stuff. I can understand it ‘on paper’, I’m worried about starting a fire or something (which has happened).
Might be an easy fix?
Keep going 🙂
^ This has been my own mantra lately.
So I’ve been wondering about something for several years now, and I figure an open thread is good place to ask.
Several years ago, someone on this blog (I forgot who) posted a link to “Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is”, by John Scalzi.
I liked the article—I found it well written, and I think it helped me to more thoroughly understand the concept of privilege.
However, the implications of the analogy really frightened and bothered me.
Before I continue, I’d like to ask if anyone finds this imposing. I’m fairly certain most of the regulars deal with far worse on a consistent basis, and I know I haven’t been a regular commenter here in quite a while.
On a completely different note…
@Mish
Is that Mayuri from Steins;Gate as your avatar?
@Prophet309
Which implications do you feel are the most frightening?
@Prophet309
It’s Mayuri, all right 🙂
Wonderful series, wonderful character, imo.
Seconding Ariblester – would you like to expand on what you were saying above? I’m off to re-read that Scalzi piece in the meantime.
Because cute animal pics are definitely needed right now, here’s a pic of our new dog. A bit late for getting name suggestions (he’s going to be called Loge, the Germanic variant of Loki – long story) but I figured you peeps might like to see him anyway.
BTW, that’s his breeder in the pics, not me. He’s about five months old and a Standard Poodle, so he’ll be huge when fully grown. Sorry I couldn’t figure out how to embed the pic – just click the link though!
What an adorable pile of floof!
@ lucrece
So much floof!!! 🙂
Standard poodle! We don’t see enough standard poodles, and I love them.
Are you planning to keep him in a fancy trim or more of a puppy trim?
There aren’t many advantages I’m missing in life, and yet I’ve still struggled and not been very successful. Following his analogy (and it does seem valid), this means I’m an inferior player. The thought/realization I may be inherently inferior as a person bothers me a great deal.
Now, I was diagnosed with depression and
Asperger’s Syndrome, so it could just be those holding me back, rather than something fundamentally lesser about me as a person.
I could also just be getting the wrong takeaway from the article, or maybe it doesn’t even matter whether I’m inferior or not. If anyone has any thoughts they’d like to share, I’d love to hear them. (Unless you’re a troll, in which case I prob wouldn’t.)
There’s also class to consider. If you weren’t born to a well-to-do family that’s a big disadvantage right there. So are depression and ASD. And in the present period of downward mobility, even if you were born to a decently-middle-class family (or wealthier), that basically only got you a lottery ticket for a slot at that level, and not (as in previous generations) an automatic pass into the middle class. Because the middle class is shrinking it’s generational musical chairs. Only a subset of the offspring of middle class families get to be middle class anymore, ever since Reagan and his “common sense revolution” of right-wing bullshit.
What happened to you, most likely, then, is you didn’t win the lottery. No shame in that.
It should also be noted that Scalzi did two follow-up columns to the original essay, both of which should be linked to the first. He explains some of his reasonings a bit there, including why he lumped one axis (I _think_ the poverty one) in with one or two others instead of considering it a separate factor.
@Ledasmom, Alan, & WWTH
He certainly is an adorable floof pile! Not sure if we will keep the puppy cut. It gets pretty warm here in summer and a shaved coat is best then (but we’re a few months away from the really hot weather). The main issue is upkeep of a longer coat. Poodle hair even at the current length takes a lot of work to keep looking that floofy. We’ll see how we go!