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The Prisoner Opening
The Opening Credits to The Prisoner.
To say more - that would be telling.
The Onion Has Been Permanently Banned from Twitter
Just hours ago, in a sudden, inexplicable, and chilling act of censorship, The Onion has been permanently banned from Twitter. Read all about it on their Twitter page.This is a dark day for journalism and sets a grim precedent for the freedom of expression in America. The truth perishes in the night.
Transition Team initial discussion summary and kickoff
I've had an initial discussion with several folks in the MetaFilter community about planning the next steps in building the community management and engagement structure necessary for the long-term health of the site. I'd like to report on who I've talked with, what we've talked about, and some of the core questions and ideas that came up in that discussion of what we're now calling a temporary Transition Team. This is the start of a process that I expect will actively involve the whole MetaFilter community in new and constructive ways, and I’m excited about that.
Dismissal for any homosexual conduct was a "custom within the agency"
Nature: Documents reveal NASA’s internal struggles over renaming Webb telescope
- which is to say, NASA ignored evidence of James Webb's culpability in purging queer people from NASA and tried to cover it up.
Antimasker Sued Whole Foods, got legal smackdown by judge
Ryan Manning went to Whole Foods in Dedham, MA on Jan 4th, 2021 during a local mask mandate. He was told to mask up, the two local managers told him to mask up. He chose to leave the premises, summoned police and claimed his civil rights were being violated. They returned to the store, where he refused accommodations such as have someone shop for him, or taking a temperature check. He filed a lawsuit in May in the Federal District Court where he went "pro se" (representing himself) alleging eight different violations including "harassment", "false imprisonment", and "unlicensed practice of medicine". He cited his reason to not wear a mask as "masks are a part of satanic rituals" and "he cannot slowly commit suicide by lowering his immune system and depriving himself of oxygen".
A decision was handed down in late January 2022..
“mere ripples on the surface of the great sea of life”
The point is that longtermism might be one of the most influential ideologies that few people outside of elite universities and Silicon Valley have ever heard about. I believe this needs to change because, as a former longtermist who published an entire book four years ago in defence of the general idea, I have come to see this worldview as quite possibly the most dangerous secular belief system in the world today.–Against longtermism by Phil Torres, an essay about the dangers of a philosophical movement that prioritizes all future potential humans over actual living ones.
The Abstract Representation of Things
Combinators and the Story of Computation
- "The idea of representing things in a formal, symbolic way has a long history... But was there perhaps some more general and fundamental infrastructure: some kind of abstract system that could ultimately model or represent anything? Today we understand that's what computation is. And it's becoming clear that the modern conception of computation is one of the single most powerful ideas in all of intellectual history—whose implications are only just beginning to unfold. But how did we finally get to it? Combinators had an important role to play, woven into a complex tapestry of ideas stretching across more than a century." (also btw The Nature of Computation previously)
Silverwolf
Were the group “Victorian cultists?”
Were they LARPers? Were they con artists preying on emotionally immature women? Were they a game studio with a very unusual front? Or was there, as one embarrassed Irish reporter asked, “almost a gay element to the activities here?” Answers were not then forthcoming. Few are even today.
Progress Studies: Uplift
How to change the course of human history
- "The story we have been telling ourselves about our origins is wrong, and perpetuates the idea of inevitable social inequality. David Graeber and David Wengrow ask why the myth of 'agricultural revolution' remains so persistent, and argue that there is a whole lot more we can learn from our ancestors."[1]
People make Glasgow
The people of Glasgow gathered quickly, and peacefully, in their hundreds today, to save two asylum seekers from detention after a dawn raid on the morning of Eid.
The two men were awakened in their flat in Glasgow's Southside at dawn by the Home Office Immigration Enforcement team and loaded into the waiting van outside. But their removal to a detention centre was blocked by five local residents who gathered in front of the vehicle, one then wedging himself beneath the van. Word quickly spread, and soon hundreds of local people had gathered peacefully in the street outside the men's flat, surrounding the van and calling for their release.
Aston Martin behind debunked anti-electic vehicle "study"
A recent report questioning the emissions benefits of electric vehicles has been convincingly debunked, but not before several media outlets ran with it. After some extensive digging into the companies and individuals behind the study, it has become clear that Aston Martin, despite attempts to distance themselves from the report, used a sock puppet PR firm registered to the wife of the company's Director of Global Government and Corporate Affairs. Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield details some of the many flaws in the report in a video for Transport Evolved.
It's Anti-Bullying Week. Or is it?
November 16-20 is Anti-Bullying Week in the UK. ...
The conviviality of niche Twitter
Elizabeth May: "Please tell me about an extremely niche section of twitter that you never knew existed until you made them angry. One time I made Feed Swans Bread Twitter angry after i suggested food alternatives. FOR MONTHS I got angry tweets, until I finally deleted it. YOUR TURN." And the replies began. For example: "I argued that (human) placenta wasn't a vegan dish. Ooooooh the placenta-eating vegans were soooooo mad! It was cuckoo bananas." And...
Around the World in Forty Days
The marriage of Austronesian outrigger designs with modern "foiling" has been smashing sailing records. In the past three decades, times for many unrestricted sailing records have been cut more-or-less in half.
Tie a Yellowhammer Round the Old UK
If a week is a long time in politics, the two weeks since Boris Johnson's government announced the prorogation of the UK Parliament (previously on Mefi) has been an age. Johnson has lost his majority, lost (and/or ejected) 22 Conservative MPS, and lost six out of his first six votes in Parliament. Since the dramatic scenes at the close of Parliament on Monday night, we have learned that the government's act of prorogation is unlawful (subject to an appeal to the UK Supreme Court to be heard next Tuesday), and that even the barest of outlines of Operation Yellowhammer, the government's contingency plan for a No Deal Brexit, is enough to demonstrate that Project Fear was always Project Reality.
Brexit: ScottishIndependenceFilter
There are 80 days until Brexit. It seems increasingly likely that the UK will 'crash out' without a deal, with extremely serious and damaging consequences. Increasingly, it appears that one of these could well be the end of the UK itself...
Woe.
Cartoonist Lucy Knisley (previously, previously, and others) has chronicled the life, agonies, opinions, and antics of her beloved cat, Linney, for years. (many more Instagram links inside)
Pinky And The Brain Theme - Postmodern Jukebox
Postmodern Jukebox covers the Pinky And The Brain Theme, featuring Emily Goglia, Rob Paulsen, and Maurice LaMarche.
Reloading a Boeing 747 'Supertanker' firefighting plane
In coverage of the recent fires in California you may have seen a Boeing 747 being used to drop fire retardant. Here's a behind the scenes look at how a 747 and DC-10 are refuelled and reloaded during firefighting operations, along with some insight into how the retardent equipment functions. The turnaround is very fast.
E S O T E R I C
Peter Thiel's Apocalypse
For two decades, Thiel has been one of the most blood pressure–raising figures in Silicon Valley, provoking fury from his liberal opponents and caveat-dripping defenses from even his most loyal allies. Yet there’s something oddly elusive about him, something that goes beyond his identities as a semi-closeted gay man, a heterodox Christian, and an exceedingly flexible libertarian—something reflected in the mishmash of seemingly irreconcilable beliefs to which he subscribes. Trying to discern what drives Peter Thiel can be an exercise in extreme futility, especially when he declines interview requests, as he did for this story. Yet everywhere Thiel goes, he leaves behind clues.
Growing up in the '80s under the German sky.
Children of 'The Cloud' and Major Tom.
The German sky I knew was a shared sky—shared with the Communist East and the Western Allies, with radioactive clouds and acid rain, with Major Tom and Mathias Rust. It was also somewhere we encountered, right above our homes, something far less certain and far more exciting than the heavy exposed-concrete buildings on the ground. Even in K-Town, where only America loomed overhead, the sky contained multitudes: twinkling distant AWACS, protective Pershings, A-10s with their uranium-covered payload, rumbling Galaxies, Miles Davis flying in for his concerts, wounded soldiers airlifting in, burn victims airlifting out. Was it crazy to imagine Major Tom somewhere in between them?
Where does my Council Tax go?
Freedom of Information requests are a fantastic tool for citizens and journalists alike, but they're also a favourite with people who have an axe to grind. When 'James' demanded to know why he had to pay for Adult Social Services and the Fire Brigade though, he probably didn't expect so blunt an answer from South Somerset District Council.
the number of patterns with tentacles is now alarmingly high
MetaFilter loves to talk about Janelle Shane's weird and often hilarious neural network projects (previouslies 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), and that's all well and good. But what happens when the neural network spits out instructions that someone has to try and translate into a physical product? Janelle and the intrepid knitters of Ravelry decided to find out by teaching a neural net to generate novel knitting patterns. And yes, of course they named the project SkyKnit.
"I’ve been declared unqualified to speak truthfully about my own life"
In the SFF world of the last several years, the so-called "Sad Puppy" and "Rabid Puppy" campaigns (previously), ostensibly about ethics in science fiction--but more often involving targeting authors and fans from marginalized groups--have been causing controversy. An anonymous blogger named Camestros Felapaton has become known for extensive and well-sourced criticisms of the Puppies and the authors that are responsible for organizing them. In a post at a collaborative blog run by several Puppy authors, Puppy organizer Brad Torgersen publicly accused the husband of author Foz Meadows of being Camestros. Based on some initial "detective work" of Lou Antonelli, who previously tried to sic law enforcement on author David Gerrold, the Puppies began a series of increasingly disturbing attacks aimed at both Camestros and the Meadows family.
Something broke, is breaking still
The use of sexual frustration and weaponized misogyny in the radicalization of young men is consistent across ideologies, and the entitlement that underlies it is not exclusive to fascist movements. - The Consent of the (Un)governed, Laurie Penny on #metoo, neoliberalism, the alt-right and the breaking point the world finds itself at today.
Vulcan, you are Cleared for Take-off
On 18th October 2007 G-VLCN, better known as XH558 took to the air for the first time in 14 1/2 years.
West, Jim West - before he was wicki-wicki-wild, he was a suave spy
Wild Wild West is a American steampunk western action comedy film from 1999, featuring Will Smith as U.S. Army Captain James West and Kevin Kline as U.S. Marshal Artemus Gordon, who together face off against a giant robotic spider and other mechanical menaces. But did you know the movie wasn't (just) an attempt to blend nostalgia for rollicking westerns and a more contemporary fascination with steampunk, but a remake of a TV series that was intended to capitalize on the then-contemporary 1960s spy thriller trend? It's true. Behold: The Wild Wild West, a western series with gadgets that ran on the CBS television network for four seasons, with 104 episodes that aired from September 17, 1965 to April 4, 1969.
The hijack was so complete that the bank wasn’t even able to send email
Researchers at the security firm Kaspersky on Tuesday described an unprecedented case of wholesale bank fraud, one that essentially hijacked a bank’s entire internet footprint.
How French "Intellectuals" Ruined The West
The irrational and identitarian “symptoms” of postmodernism are easily recognizable and much criticized, but the ethos underlying them is not well understood. This is partly because postmodernists rarely explain themselves clearly and partly because of the inherent contradictions and inconsistencies of a way of thought which denies a stable reality or reliable knowledge to exist. However, there are consistent ideas at the root of postmodernism and understanding them is essential if we intend to counter them. They underlie the problems we see today in Social Justice Activism, undermine the credibility of the Left and threaten to return us to an irrational and tribal “pre-modern” culture.
Judicial committee unanimously recommends to remove Judge Camp
Federal Court Justice Robin Camp, who asked a woman during a rape trial why she could not keep her legs together and called her 'the accused' several times, has been recommended to be removed from the bench, after an initial request from Alberta Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley. (The report is quite long but written in clear English.)
Just like a hairy black potato with wings
Let's close out Happy Fun September with the heretofore unknown parts of the creation story.
• author totally misunderstands Internet in way that sounds profound
Here is a list of things that I am including in this book. Please send me my seven-figure advance.
- affluent family lives in suburb. The husband (who is a professor but also a novelist) is cheating on his wife, but he thinks it falls into a moral gray area because he is a Great Man
Is The Texas AG Leading A Nationwide War Against Transgender People?
Most of the media focus on Transgender rights up until now have been on "Bathroom Bills" that are being presented across the country, yet in doing so, we are, as Chase Strangio, Staff Attorney for the ACLU LGBT & HIV Project states, ...ceding the terms of this conversation to the people who want to expel trans people from public life and write us out of existence."
But is that really happening? Are there people who want to write trans people out of existence?
But is that really happening? Are there people who want to write trans people out of existence?
Man, he does what he can, but he's not good enough
On Beyond Zarathustra: A Parody for All and None.
What two authors go together better than Dr. Seuss and Friedrich Nietzsche? (A work in progress, but worth sharing early.)
When Liberals Attack
Jesse Singal on Alice Dreger's book about witch hunts in social science: "It’s hard not to come away from Dreger’s wonderful book feeling like we’re doomed."
Victorian Nipple Rings
A longtime legend in the piercing community has it that during the Victorian Era, young women from England were briefly caught up in the fad of having their nipples pierced. It was all the rage, and then it went out of style. It’s one of those stories, like Julius Caesar’s own pierced nipples, or King Tut’s stretched lobes, that seems made up, or at least padded with potential exaggeration. It’s the sort of thing that raises eyebrows, challenges how we think about Victorian Culture (The same people who supposedly covered their table’s legs because they too closely resembled female ankles were getting their nipples done?) and just plain seems impossible. Except it’s all true and then some.
Bae of Pigs
Sources can be tricky things. The Daily Mail doesn't have the greatest reputation. Lord Ashcroft is a Tory billionaire with a grudge against David Cameron. And so far they are the only sources for this one. That said, judge for yourself:
Prime Minister David Cameron ‘put a private part of his anatomy’ into a dead pig’s mouth .
(Over on Twitter, as you might have guessed, it's Christmas.)
Prime Minister David Cameron ‘put a private part of his anatomy’ into a dead pig’s mouth .
(Over on Twitter, as you might have guessed, it's Christmas.)
ISIS, ISIL, Daesh
The Mystery of ISIS
The problem, however, lies not in chronicling the successes of the movement, but in explaining how something so improbable became possible. The explanations so often given for its rise—the anger of Sunni communities, the logistical support provided by other states and groups, the movement’s social media campaigns, its leadership, its tactics, its governance, its revenue streams, and its ability to attract tens of thousands of foreign fighters—fall far short of a convincing theory of the movement’s success.
Complex Systems Break in Complex Ways
The RISKS Digest Turns 30:
In February 1985 Adele Goldberg, the President of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), published a letter in the Communications of the ACM expressing concern with humanity’s “increasingly critical dependence on the use of computers” and the risks associated with complex computer and software systems.
On August 1st 1985 Stanford Research Institute's Peter G. Neumann responded by creating RISKS@SRI-CRL.
This wasn't exactly a clean operation.
It's been a long time coming, but the Porn Trolling copyright lawyers of Prenda Law finally had (another) day in court, this time before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. It went poorly.
The Ultra Heavy Beat
Legendary industrial music pioneers, KMFDM's 30th anniversary this year, saw the release of a live album and tour called "WE ARE". Sascha Konietzko took some time to provide insights about his friendship with Ministry's Al Jourgensen as well as the last thirty years, and his philosophy on making music.
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