If horrible people think I don’t exist, I should probably take that as an “achievement unlocked”, right? Because logically that means that the horrible people can’t observe me and thus they will not be able to be horrible to me. I very much approve of these prospects.
i believe this diagram is from the neuro experiment where they connected two rats together by the brain and they could transmit information. rats have good neuroplasticity. it was a simple lever test with the rats pulling the lever to get water but the encoder gets a visual thing i forget what exactly they used but they get a cue and the brain activity related to recieving the cue zipzops into the decoders brain directly and everyone was peeing their pants over it because it implied hypothetically you could hook a bunch of brains together, creating a network like a computer
looking forward to may 19, 2036, the day a guy successfully installs and runs DOOM on a box full of rats for the first time
i want to be the first guy to compile the linux kernel on ratbox
sci-fi, yes. sci-fi is an endlessly evolving conversation of desires and anxieties and predictions and ideas, taking place over a century of fiction and essays and becoming more and more diverse as it goes.
do you know where transhumanism is characterized as a rich white silicon valley thing, obsessed with becoming one with a god-AI? the news. because the news is obsessed with silicon valley, they’re obsessed with rich people, and they’re obsessed with showcasing every possible idiosyncracy so the normal people can shake their heads and laugh at how those dumb nerds are different from them. transhumanism looks rich because the news only reports on transhumanists who are rich.
Spot the rich male anti-poor Silicon Valley capitalist. Oh wait there isn’t any. Make one up. Ignore the fact that one of the most important forerunners of Actual Transhumanism is a poor as fuck mentally ill british working-class afab agender weirdo. Ignore the way the most common cyborg implant is an IUD. Ignore trans people doing weird shit that creeps out the normies and getting cracked down on as a result. Ignore all the ways normies’ regulations have restricted freaktech to people who can afford to route around them; in either having enough, or having nothing to lose. Ignore all the facts that contradict the narrative. The truly powerful change the facts to fit their views, and some people are quite inconvenient facts that need changing.
I got “I almost catch the demon a couple of times”
“Wasn’t any prettier at point-blank”
“the algebra of need”
Finally, in the small mountain town of Chauoen they came into their hotel to find two Danes sitting in the lobby with a softball sized chunk of hash sitting in front of them.
“In ACT, the essential feature of the relationship is unconditional acceptance of the client’s experience.”
#gradschoolproblems
“Take a good long stare.” Oof judgy book.
“I’d rather not tell you about the achaierai, if you don’t mind.”
“The program does not include a submit button because when the user clicks on the image the x and y coordinates of where the user clicked on the image are transmitted to the script.”
“Pylcrafte is laughing.”
It’s a skeleton.
Just a picture of a skeleton.
I’m so sorry
‘ “Stop!” Spock ordered.’
“No joke,” Dahl said.
Dr Stockman: (laughs and rubs his hands) [Dared not to do otherwise!] She too! Oh that’s splendid!
“Though defensible as a war measure, this was an arbitrary grant of executive power contrary to American tradition and to the spirit of the Constitution”
‘”Then we must take the road, Mr. Frodo,” said Sam. “We must take it and chance our luck, if there is any luck in Mordor.”’
The entire fucking page was empty…
He went up to it and the smile he gave me was more beautiful than any enchanted meadow or pool of stars
AAAH LOVE THIS
“I thought she looked like a child in a grown woman’s clothing.” THANKS, GARDEN OF SHADOWS
“I’m not sure that this awakening will last long enough to quench my thirst. More. I want more”
Okay, I keep my romance novels close. What.
“Very good, then, very good. Is there anything else?”
LIES LIES AND MORE LIES
“Young men and women alike, uncaring of who they saw.”
“Thirty years ago, the vast majority of the world lived in countries with fertility rates at or above replacement level (that is, enough to compensate for the mortality rate).”
“For example, most of the devastation of giant redwoods in the Pacific Northwest takes place on land owned by the government, and is only profitable because the lumber companies do not have to buy the land in a competitive market.”
Alternatively, a couple of browser tabs closer but requiring modulo arithmetic because there aren’t enough pages:
“This makes it difficult to sell national defense on the free market.“
Or the closest physical book:
“I did meet Monsieur Bidet, although regrettably I didn’t shake him by the hand.”
If we truly are characters in a video game being played by an advanced civilization, the one controlling me is a noob.
Mine is fairly skilled, but resolutely refuses to consult strategy guides and FAQs under any circumstances.
Mine did some clever minmaxing at character design but has been playing half-assedly ever since.
Mine needs to stop fucking around on side quests. Do they not see the dragon right over there?
Mine definitely somehow found some combination of skills in character design that allllllmost gives psionics but not quite, and has just been trying to level into psionics ever since.
Mine decided to be a wizard, in a world with no magic, and took some disadvantages that make the character specific goals of finding a companion hard because they really liked the sound of “read 5x faster” and “develop random obsessions so that you don’t need to take a break”. Also found the best tumor disorder in the world to have to get the points for the disadvantage.
Mine seemed to have accidentally skipped the “physical traits” segment (you know, the one where you can spend skill points and acquire disadvantage points) entirely? I’m just glad the devs don’t seem to treat typing as a separate skill from the base computer use skill.
They clearly spent advantage points on opportunities to meet lots of powerful potential friends and then forgot to create any character drives to interact with people who didn’t have inherently compatible personalities.
Also, I still don’t know why they thought executive function issues were an acceptable source of disadvantage points. That was a bad decision. I get it, you get extra realism points for picking conditions that your character’s family members have, but what did you even spend those points on …
Hair. You spent the points on having the kind of loosely curled hair that makes people ask if I have a perm or use special products, when I don’t. I don’t even find this experience enjoyable. Some of the more popular character hairstyles are locked, and all the prettier ones require at least 10 minutes of game time each day anyway. This is ridiculous.
I think my player just took an idea of a really cool high-level character and didn’t consider how to actually get there and after character creation was like “oh fuck" when the result was actually nigh unplayable and had to spend in-game years just figuring out how this weird mess of a minmax even works.
When your character concept relies on certain drugs 24/7 to be functional you should really have a plan for starting with them instead of heading into the game world with a broken build and barely any way to fix it, no matter how clever your “let’s bump cognition and intuition and run everything else
off those instead of their normal base stats” trick is. It’s totally clever though; when you can beat trained competitors by just defaulting on your aptitude rolls you know you’re doing something right but nonetheless one should consider the consequences of starting with basically no skill points in anything. I know the base aptitudes can’t be increased in-game anywhere as easily as skills (especially with that “fast learner” trait) but making the early game utterly torturous for theoretical potential later on might not be the best idea anyway.
And I get it, those special traits and combinations are Expensive, but I’m not sure piling on all kinds of mental health disadvantages is the best source for the points (I know, “with optimal play and migitating them with in-game actions this is a really OP combination” or whatever that strategy guide said, or no it actually wasn’t even a strategy guide it was an off-hand speculation on IRC about how such-and-such combination would be totally exploitable; but then the ‘optimal play’ part is actually really relevant); I know the “badbrains trans girl programmer” is kind of an unbalanced template and a popular FotM for a reason but you should remember the disadvantage points actually do come from somewhere especially if you intend to take the basic idea of the template to absurd extremes.
I guess my player hangs out in the same experimental munchkin channel as sdhs’s because that “almost gives psionics” thing is clearly observable in this build too although my player isn’t trying to push into that direction (it’s certainly interesting how minmaxing and exploiting produces something that basically seems to be trying to route around hardcoded features of the game engine itself as a side effect and probably shows the degree of fucked-upness in my player’s ideas (it’s a very admirable form of fucked-upness though)).
TL;DR my player just skimped on all the skill points and threw in a fuckload of disadvantages to max out on some aptitudes and pile on all the exploitable traits in combinations that are basically “haha look guise: in extremely specific circumstances I can get +omfglolwtfbbq modifiers to these of throws” at the cost of making the combination actually completely unplayable by traditional strategies and is now figuring out the “oh dog wat done” part of actually using it.
So if curative fandom fought transformative fandom, who would win?
curative fandom makes an enormously detailed case with hundreds of citations for why they would win.
tranformative fandom produces emotionally compelling accounts of just about every possible outcome of the fight and then some. most of the stories end in sloppy makeouts.
curative fandom reads these stories, and starts wondering…
transformative fandom reads the detailed case that curative fandom has made and works it into their stories. curative fandom is delighted that their hard work is being read and used.
curative fandom experiments with writing fanfic. their work is dry and sometimes gets bogged down minutia, but it stands out as different. they are encouraged by kudos and positive comments, and start trying out new interpretations of the characters and events of the fight they laid out.
transformative fandom has a go at summarising and breaking down the fight for new and old readers. the casual humour of their presentation, and focus on character tropes over the details of the fight, is strangely compelling to curative fandom.
one day transformative fandom shyly approaches curative fandom. would you go out with me, says transformative fandom.
curative fandom has been imagining this moment a lot. they have precisely delineated every scenario and how it leads to their victory. but they have no idea what to do.
awkwardly, they say yes. they go to see a movie together.
afterwards they are both overwhelmed with excitement. they argue about what the movie got wrong. they both agree: it sucked!
let’s fix it, says transformative fandom.
…ok, says curative fandom.
they work on a fanfic together. curative fandom makes sure it all hangs together, perfect to the lore, and after a while suggests changes to the characterisation. transformative fandom develops the story arcs, and the shipping, and starts offering different interpretations, and pointing out connections that curative fandom missed.
they publish their fanfic. it’s popular! there’s argument in the comments about what they got wrong. curative fandom wants to shut them down, but transformative fandom jumps in to suggest writing more fanfiction with the other interpretations. soon their fic has a thick cluster of fic of its own, and they complicate it by writing fic of fic of their fic. curative fandom is getting a headache, but then transformative fandom suggests they set up a meta-timeline and work out all the different details, and they take to it with gusto.
the fanfics start crossing over and cross-pollinating, but through curative fandom’s efforts, consistency is maintained. curative fandom maintains a detailed wiki provides newcomers with directions and places to start, and takes care of keeping the tags and ship names and AUs consistent.
one day, curative fandom is reading one of transformative fandom’s old fics about their supposed battle. they’re blushing.
what are you reading, says transformative fandom. curative fandom sends them the link.
oh my god what was i thinking this is so bad! says transformative fandom. no no no says curative fandom. i really like it. especially the scene when Curie kisses Tran in the submarine. i had so many feels!
wait what did i just say, says curative fandom.
no go on, says transformative fandom, edging closer. tell me what you liked about that scene.
well, says curative fandom. you got it so right, that’s exactly how they would kiss, I love how you included the detail about Curie’s missing tooth. most authors would forget that. but i was just… i was so happy for curie. they finally got to be with tran, even though it was forbidden and could only happen in a submarine!
transformative fandom smiles. curative fandom looks at them.
While you live in my house, you’ll follow my rules!
I won’t let you choose another place to live, even if the people who own it are willing. My house, my rules!
I’ll strictly control what skills you develop and resources you amass that are relevant to being able to live on your own. My house, my rules!
I’ll deny permissions legally required to get a license or a job that I don’t want you to get. My house, my rules!
If you manage to get out of the house anyway, I’ll call on the government to force you to come back. My house, my rules!
I was thinking about this idea while reading Wisconsin v. Yoder, and specifically William Douglas’ dissent. Yoder is a classic free exercise case: it concerned a law mandating education (public or private) through high school, pitting the interest of the state in seeing to it that its citizens were educated against the right of Amish parents to not violate their traditions and beliefs. The Supreme Court sided with the Amish.
Justice Douglas’ dissent centered on the argument that there were three parties whose interests in this dispute were relevant, not two. Basically, “has anyone thought to ask the kids what they think?”
To be specific, there’s one party whose interests in this dispute are relevant. Both of the other interests are basically bullshit.
OTOH, the party whose interests are most relevant is also typically significantly cognitively impaired, has atypically high time preference, is not legally permitted to have a job and financially support themself, and so on.
Yes, that’s true, and that’s why someone else usually has to try to take care of their interests, but that doesn’t mean the caretakers’ interests are in any way valid; only their attempt to faithfully act in accordance of the only relevant party’s interests is.
The state can go [do something it can’t actually do because it doesn’t have anatomy] with its interests about its citizens; the child’s interests to be educated or not are what matter.
And the parents can go [do something they are probably religiously prohibited from doing] with their tradition; their ability to (possibly, depending on the circumstances; oftentimes they do, sometimes they don’t, and that’s why shit’s hard) know their child’s interests better than the state is the thing that matters.
I mean, I’m pretty strongly pro child’s rights, but the idea that a guardian has no interests in the matter is absurd. Being a guardian doesn’t (and shouldn’t) mean you’re a slave to your child’s Optimal Best Interest, and I certainly don’t want the state deciding what that is even if it did.
E.g. sometimes I may need to shower even if Colton really wants to be held and will scream the whole time if I don’t. And I could forgo the shower, and he would be better off in the moment if I did. But I’m not obligated to just because I’m his guardian.
Okay, that’s firmly within “your body, your rules” imo. Being a guardian only gives a reasonable set of obligations.
I don’t consider children entitled to limitless bending-over backwards, but I do consider them entitled to certain freedoms; for example if a parent for some reason had decided that preventing their child from accessing information on lgbtq people was in their interests of ~religion~ and ~tradition~, they should basically cuck off with their interests. Violating a child’s self-determination and choice requires way better reasons than “but I wanna”, but a child isn’t entitled to violate their parent’s self-determination and choice for frivoulous reasons either.
In the example where the options (school or homeschooling) are both basically legitimate I wouldn’t consider either of the offered arguments a valid reason for deciding differently from what the child would choose. There are possible reasons to override the child’s choice on this matter, but neither “the state wants its citizens to be this way” or “the parents want religion/tradition” are acceptable to me. (The parents are certainly allowed to freely express their views to persuade their child but if the child wants something else I do consider it a violation of the child’s freedom of religion to forcibly convert them or make them follow the rules of a religion that isn’t theirs.)
(ETA: the distinction I’m talking about at least somewhat resembles “negative vs. positive rights”)
… I mean if you’re going to go with negative vs positive rights at all then you’ve basically abolished the entire concept of guardianship. Which, like, is theoretically satisfying but completely ignores the actual nature of actual children.
Also I think we need to distinguish “the things we want the government to stay out of” from “the things that don’t violate children’s rights” from “the things that are immoral as a parent”. IMO the 1st is larger than the second at least given current form of government, and the 2nd is larger than the 3rd, but even the third has a lot of degrees of freedom that revolve around parents actually making choices for children.
I mean “it resembles” in the way that it seems to have something similar; not that it’s actually that much about the same thing. But I do think that overall parents are erring way too much on limiting minors’ freedom and the criteria for “you aren’t allowed to do that”/”you must do this” should be stricter than “just because I want and I’m in a position of power”.
And the degree of should obviously depends on the situation; the state needs to heck off most of the time (the exact degree of hecking off should change though; less policing of “do parents act like a domestic NSA in the name of “””safety”””?” and more protection of children’s bodily autonomy against assault and abuse and I don’t know whether the total would consequently be significantly lesser or somewhat greater but it would be better) and I don’t subscribe to the authoritarian theory which treats all valid targets of politics as valid targets of state action.
So in the original question, if the child wants to go to an external school but the parents want to homeschool, they would need to come up with a better argument than “it’s our religion/tradition”. And similarly if the child wants to homeschool and parents are willing (if parents aren’t, then it’s remarkably simple) to do it, the state would need to have something much more solid than “muh social engineering tho”. There obviously are questions where parents’ interests are relevant but I don’t accept either of these particular arguments (unless they were just abbreviated very harshly and the originals in the court case were way more relevant).
Solidity is the JavaScript-like programming language designed for developing smart contracts that run on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
My intuitions are saying that the language should be functional, simple, high-level and damn well tested. Ideally it should also be close enough to natural language that it would be partially self-documenting and difficult to hide nasty tricks in. And it should have a strict syntax so that there’s only one correct way to do anything ever, and deviating from it would produce an obvious error instead of unexpected behavior and it would be noticed at “compile-time” so that the only programs that ever get to run are Correct.
I’m not an expert yet but these features sound like inspiration should be taken from the likes of Ada, Haskell, Python etc.
…so they chose javascript instead
what has the world done to deserve this
Rust, Haskell, and Coq (or one of the other dependently typed languages, I haven’t use them) are much better inspirations. Ada was only good like 50 years ago, and Python is a really bad choice if you care about program correctness.
Natural language is the opposite of what you want. Every language that has tried it (COBOL and Ruby stand out) have turned into unreadable messes. You want something very close to formal logic, so it is extremely clear what is being done.
“One way to do everything” is literally impossible in a Turing complete language. You can’t even make it hard to do things in more than one way. You can have conventions for how to do common things, and that’s about it.
There is also argued to be some value in a well-define total functional subset of the language, which is much easier to prove things about, and which would be preferable in any case where Turing-completness is not actually necessary.
Okay yes, my totally non-expert intuitions and vague guesses were corrected by people who know better (insert that picture about how the best way to get information is to post wrong information first so the people who know the stuff will correct it).
Although the “one way to do a thing” is basically “one reasonable way to do a thing”; I’d find it preferable if the alternate ways of doing most things were clearly excessively roundabout so the language would effectively end up enforcing best practices as deviating from them would be obviously a stupid idea and oftentimes signal that something suspicious might be going on.
And the “natural language” thing wasn’t what I was exactly going for; having short clear ways of doing standard things instead of getting bogged down in unnecessary imperative boilerplate would perhaps be closer to what I meant.
Anonymous asked: Charitable explanation for NIMBYs: People use their property as their retirement savings and/or have put a significant amount of their income into homeownership, and feel legitimately economically threatened by more housing development.
I mean, yes, that is why people are NIMBYs. But we should really end the subsidies that make people use a home (in one location! no diversification!) as their retirement savings, because it’s fucking awful. end the cult of homeownership tbqh
This is why I rent.
Also, shit should keep getting cheaper over time so investing in anything that isn’t productive capital (with few exceptions) is inherently a terrible decision for savings and one has absolutely no right to be surprised when the artificial prices inevitably collapse.
Of course, people who have been lied to that their house prices (w|sh)ould keep rising are fraud victims and that’s bad and it’s not 100% their own fault in that sense, but in a different, brutal “git gud” sense it totally is one’s own damn fault if they use non-productive capital as savings.
BREAKING: Democratic lawmakers have begun a sit-in on the US House floor “until there is action” on gun control, Rep. John Lewis says.
lmao, look at these assholes throwing a fit because they’re not allowed to subvert the democracy and due process
Goooooooooood why is THIS the thing that makes them protest. Not the patriot act or climate change or health care reform or literally anything else? Instead we’re going to do it for one of the most confusing issues ever? Ugh.
Fucking progs. NSA and wars and shit are like “yeah whatever, Obama is in charge now so oppression is suddenly cool with us” and then they throw a fucking canky-ranky on guns of all things.
