Your pointless thoughts & observations

  On 9/5/2021 at 6:16 PM, cichlisuite said:

You mean the System Shock stuff? Yeah, that's inevitable by now I guess.

I sometimes dwell on these things too much, but why is human kind so fascinated by horrible stuff, even though we know it's horrible, it's everywhere in popular culture almost like a dark dream slowly becoming reality... are we more like "I don't know what I'm doing and this is horrible but I can't stop" or it's more like "YESSS, bring it on BRAHAHAHA"

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I reckon. It's human nature to see how far we can push boundaries, consequences be damned.

  On 9/4/2021 at 10:17 PM, cichlisuite said:

The level at which silicon valley people try to "tech" the whole world really annoys me. Like the big fad for a while now is that we live in a simulation. Even black holes are considered to be "a bug" in the simulation's "code". This gives me so much less hope for the future. We really are going to destroy our civilization. By hubris. You really can't get any lower than that.

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When clockworks were the cutting edge of the technology and material mechanism was the order of the day some philosophers said the universe is like a clockwork and God is the watchmaker. The old mechanists couldn't even fathom things interacting with each other without physically touching or something like the electromagnetic field so they came up with ideas like luminiferous aether to explain light propagation in space, because waves traveling in empty waves was simply just unthinkable.

Currently the computers are the forefront of the technology and the universe is supposed to be a computer simulation. I think it's just shows our limit of imagination. Maybe later the computer simulation idea gets replaced with something we can't even imagine now.

  On 9/5/2021 at 8:03 PM, zkom said:

When clockworks were the cutting edge of the technology and material mechanism was the order of the day some philosophers said the universe is like a clockwork and God is the watchmaker. The old mechanists couldn't even fathom things interacting with each other without physically touching or something like the electromagnetic field so they came up with ideas like luminiferous aether to explain light propagation in space, because waves traveling in empty waves was simply just unthinkable.

Currently the computers are the forefront of the technology and the universe is supposed to be a computer simulation. I think it's just shows our limit of imagination. Maybe later the computer simulation idea gets replaced with something we can't even imagine now.

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I don't think it's only a limit of our collective imagination in this particular case. It might be a limit of their imagination though. There are fields out there that deal with cosmology and origins of life in a scientific and naturalistic way that do not share the simulation views. I think, for the same reasons as you described (computer science being one (my emphasis) of the forefronts today), that computer people look at the world through number crunching (for the sake of argument, let's leave pure mathematics aside here), and think that all problems can be solved by computers. While this might be true to some extent, it very much narrows down the perception of the world in order to fit in that perspective (disregarding many otherwise intrinsic and crucial aspects). Have you read any of the simulation ideas that they put forward? I think it has more to do with gas station sci-fi books and lots of hubris than anything else.

I've been deep googling the german lawyer Reiner Fuellmich on and off ever since someone sent me a video of him where he explains that he intends to take several governments to court by the way of a class action suit over lockdowns/covid measures because he feels that they are crimes against humanity and that the Nuremberg trials show there is a legal precedent for doing so. Obviously this guy is familiar with the Japanese concept of the crisitunity and saw a way of probably making some money by misleading people into joining his class action suit. Unfortunately googling him usually never gave anything that I could maybe use to discredit him and everything was just sites hosting a transcript of his covidtrial telselvideo. I mostly tried to find something about his involvement in trials against big companies such as Volkswagen and Deutsche Bank, as he explains at the beginning of the video as it seemed to me that there would at least be something online linking him to such widely reported cases. From the transcript:

"I have been practicing law primarily as a trial lawyer against fraudulent corporations such as Deutsche Bank, formerly one of the world’s largest and most respected banks, today one of the most toxic criminal organizations in the world;"

A couple of months ago I finally got something, 2 sites hosting transcripts of Deutsche Bank shareholder meetings, one from 2016 on DB's own site, and one from 2017 that is hosted elsewhere. He's in the transcripts because as a DB shareholder he is not happy with DB's policies that put them at risk of litigation because of the losses this would invoke for the shareholders. He and his team are now at the point that they are inviting companies (for reasons I'm not aware of private entities are not able to participate) to join the class action suit for a mere 800,- euro's with the promise that if the suit is won and damages are awarded the participants will get their 800,- back plus 10% of something else, not entirely clear on that. In the FAQ that's now on their official class action suit site they ask people to give the company that will actually be handling the suit a good review on google. So I really want to give them a five star review and add the links to the DB shareholder meeting reports but I'm slightly afraid I'll be hounded down by these German lawyers. 

For anyone that has as much time to waste on this bullshit as I apparently have:

https://hauptversammlung.db.com/en/docs/HV2016_Gegenantraege_en_040516.pdf

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1159508/000119312517160708/d364981dex993.htm  

  On 9/5/2021 at 9:08 PM, cichlisuite said:

I don't think it's only a limit of our collective imagination in this particular case. It might be a limit of their imagination though. There are fields out there that deal with cosmology and origins of life in a scientific and naturalistic way that do not share the simulation views. I think, for the same reasons as you described (computer science being one (my emphasis) of the forefronts today), that computer people look at the world through number crunching (for the sake of argument, let's leave pure mathematics aside here), and think that all problems can be solved by computers. While this might be true to some extent, it very much narrows down the perception of the world in order to fit in that perspective (disregarding many otherwise intrinsic and crucial aspects). Have you read any of the simulation ideas that they put forward? I think it has more to do with gas station sci-fi books and lots of hubris than anything else.

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Yes, I've read them. It feels like theism with aliens. 

But generally I think the simulation argument doesn't hold up much because we have no idea how common intelligent life is, how far it can develop (f.e., is there a Great Filter of some sort?),  how many universes there are, can universe even be simulated, etc. Certainly we ourselves are far away from such simulation because we can barely simulate the inner workings of a single proton in very very very slow motion and even those results are not consistent..  Anyway it's completely speculative and unscientific because there is no way it could be disproved.

  On 9/6/2021 at 6:56 AM, zkom said:

Anyway it's completely speculative and unscientific because there is no way it could be disproved.

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yup, for all practical purposes it's a religion

We live in a society

so tell us Tim J, in 500 words or less, what exactly is so facepalm inducing here? you have to use words.

He's taken a vow of silence so allow me to be the voice of the voluntarily voiceless;

People gathered in a small space like there is no global pandemic, mask the fuck up ffs.

No epic vocals like on Sky and Sand

Weird oktoberfest vibes

Unlike Paul, Fritz clearly does not have a crippling cocaine habit so what's his excuse for this descent into poor taste?

is there any culture on earth that interprets the shoulder shrug as anything other than someone's expression of not knowing something? if not, if someone was not "taught" or had grown up in a closed culture where they had never observed a shoulder shrug, do you suppose they would be able to interpret or deduce the meaning correctly?
eg. when the conquistadors landed in the new world, and tried to communicate with the aztecs, do you suppose one of the two expressed a shoulder shrug in frustration at the lack of understanding betwix the two cultures and this was interpreted correctly by the other party or was it added miscommunication leading to further delays in understanding for both communities?

  On 9/7/2021 at 8:20 PM, Nebraska said:

is there any culture on earth that interprets the shoulder shrug as anything other than someone's expression of not knowing something? if not, if someone was not "taught" or had grown up in a closed culture where they had never observed a shoulder shrug, do you suppose they would be able to interpret or deduce the meaning correctly?
eg. when the conquistadors landed in the new world, and tried to communicate with the aztecs, do you suppose one of the two expressed a shoulder shrug in frustration at the lack of understanding betwix the two cultures and this was interpreted correctly by the other party or was it added miscommunication leading to further delays in understanding for both communities?

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no clue about the aztecs, but this reminds me of something a friend of mine told me years ago after visiting India. he said people trying to sell you stuff in India don't all do the universal head nod for "yes" or shaking the head for "no." they do some sort of in between, like a head wobbling side to side, which you are essentially left to interpret it as a possible yes or a no based on however the interaction is going. 

  On 9/7/2021 at 9:22 PM, zero said:

no clue about the aztecs, but this reminds me of something a friend of mine told me years ago after visiting India. he said people trying to sell you stuff in India don't all do the universal head nod for "yes" or shaking the head for "no." they do some sort of in between, like a head wobbling side to side, which you are essentially left to interpret it as a possible yes or a no based on however the interaction is going. 

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i think i know what you mean about the "in between" head wobbling. similarly, when i was growing up i had a couple of hindi friends and i noticed a lot of them said "sure" for yes and "i don't believe so" or "i'm not sure" for no. this felt more like polite or comforting ways to agree/disagree with someone rather than an assertive and sure yes or no. 

it makes me wonder whether there is something in the language: i.e. in hindi (or punjabi) a yes more closely associated with the word "sure", or is it more a cultural thing where being assertive/definitive can be looked upon as having poor manners.

  On 9/7/2021 at 8:20 PM, Nebraska said:

is there any culture on earth that interprets the shoulder shrug as anything other than someone's expression of not knowing something? if not, if someone was not "taught" or had grown up in a closed culture where they had never observed a shoulder shrug, do you suppose they would be able to interpret or deduce the meaning correctly?
eg. when the conquistadors landed in the new world, and tried to communicate with the aztecs, do you suppose one of the two expressed a shoulder shrug in frustration at the lack of understanding betwix the two cultures and this was interpreted correctly by the other party or was it added miscommunication leading to further delays in understanding for both communities?

 

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  On 9/7/2021 at 9:22 PM, zero said:

no clue about the aztecs, but this reminds me of something a friend of mine told me years ago after visiting India. he said people trying to sell you stuff in India don't all do the universal head nod for "yes" or shaking the head for "no." they do some sort of in between, like a head wobbling side to side, which you are essentially left to interpret it as a possible yes or a no based on however the interaction is going. 

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  On 9/7/2021 at 10:46 PM, Nebraska said:

i think i know what you mean about the "in between" head wobbling. similarly, when i was growing up i had a couple of hindi friends and i noticed a lot of them said "sure" for yes and "i don't believe so" or "i'm not sure" for no. this felt more like polite or comforting ways to agree/disagree with someone rather than an assertive and sure yes or no. 

it makes me wonder whether there is something in the language: i.e. in hindi (or punjabi) a yes more closely associated with the

word "sure", or is it more a cultural thing where being assertive/definitive can be looked upon as having poor manners.

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https://www.alsintl.com/blog/interpreting-body-language/

    Quote

Shaking the Head No and Nodding Yes

If you’re unfamiliar with the language of the country you plan to visit, you’ll likely be doing a lot of nodding and pointing. That’s why you should make sure that nodding means what you think it does.

In the US, we think it’s universally known that shaking your head from side to side clearly means “No,” while nodding the head up and down means “Yes.” The same goes for China, Canada, Mexico, and most parts of Western Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

But, there are some exceptions. Pay close attention when interpreting body language while you are traveling in other countries. In Greece, for example, tilting the head first to the left and then to the right means “Yes.” Tilting the head up and back means “No.”

Similarly, in Bulgaria and Albania, a head shake means “Yes” while nodding means “No.” Residents of Saudi Arabia shake the head to say “Yes” and tip the head back to say “No.” And in Iran, dipping the head down indicates “Yes” while jerking the chin upward means “No.”

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  On 9/7/2021 at 6:27 PM, zero said:

so tell us Tim J, in 500 words or less, what exactly is so facepalm inducing here? you have to use words.

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  On 9/7/2021 at 9:22 PM, zero said:

no clue about the aztecs, but this reminds me of something a friend of mine told me years ago after visiting India. he said people trying to sell you stuff in India don't all do the universal head nod for "yes" or shaking the head for "no." they do some sort of in between, like a head wobbling side to side, which you are essentially left to interpret it as a possible yes or a no based on however the interaction is going. 

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  On 9/8/2021 at 5:53 AM, iococoi said:

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Notice they conveniently left women out of the equation 

Back to old game box art. Is this the most badass 8-bit/16-bit era game cover art?

It has:

1. Two shirtless dudes with big guns (one of them is firing both the rifle and the grenade launcher at the same time?)
2. Baphomet
3. A stormtrooper
4. An ape/Sasquatch thing

And explosions

And an ominous castle / mountain combo with lightning.

The only thing that isn't top notch is the title font looking too clean and a disturbing lack of lady in ripped dress with exposed booba. Still 9.999999/10

in Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex they could've given the Major some pants. 

  On 9/9/2021 at 2:37 AM, ignatius said:

in Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex they could've given the Major some pants. 

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What's funny is that the movies and the TV series sexualize the Major less than the original manga. I wouldn't be able to post some pages of the original uncensored manga here.

  On 9/8/2021 at 5:53 AM, iococoi said:

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so funny when you see this sort of thing and realise how those JBP diagrams are just a knockoff of it.

why does it take so long to clear a wreck on a highway? so many times I'm sitting in the back-up, then finally get to pass the accident, and it's like 1 damaged car with a tow truck/fire truck/police sitting there blocking an additional lane. everywhere I've driven in US/Canada it's the same. I get safety is a priority, but seems like there should be a more efficient way to do this.