[video=youtube;J7E-aoXLZGY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY[/video] I think all of us pedants can learn a thing or two from this; including me. Sforzato in particular should appreciate it. Enjoy.
I have always found this rather obvious, but there appears to be an extensive study done that proves its veracity. Source and study details: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/23/2/187.full This is a summary from The Register. It seems to be a credible study, though I would appreciate insights if it is unreliable. It makes a lot of sense. Decreased intelligence leads to inefficient communication and an inability to understand other people. A failure to understand others is a trademark of conservatism and bigotry besides. What are you opinions? Do you acknowledge the logic and study or not? Discuss.
I am amazed that no one has made a thread yet. The Magicians is a 2009 fantasy novel by author Lev Grossman. It is a dark and adult urban fantasy set in New York about a brilliant kid who finds his way into a college for magic. It mixes elements of several different genres and has an interesting world but above all else focuses on the characters. A friend of mine had this to say about it: "Harry Potter goes to college, and Narnia goes to hell." It is an apt description, as you will find out if you read it. I give it 9.5/10 and recommend it highly to all who read this. Be warned that it is dark and cynical and not for the fainthearted. Synopsis (SPOILERS!): Spoiler Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. He’s a senior in high school, and a certifiable genius, but he’s still secretly obsessed with a series of fantasy novels he read as a kid, about the adventures of five children in a magical land called Fillory. Compared to that, anything in his real life just seems gray and colorless. Everything changes when Quentin finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the practice of modern sorcery. He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. But something is still missing. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he thought it would. Then, after graduation, he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. Mention by George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire: These days any novel about young sorcerers at wizard school inevitably invites comparison to Harry Potter. Lev Grossman meets the challenge head on… and very successfully. The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea. Solidly rooted in the traditions of both fantasy and mainstream literary fiction, the novel tips its hat to Oz and Narnia as well to Harry, but don’t mistake this for a children’s book. Grossman’s sensibilities are thoroughly adult, his narrative dark and dangerous and full of twists. Hogwart’s was never like this. TOR Review (SPOILERS!): http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/08/the-magicians-by-lev-grossman Have you read it? If not, you should. If you have, then did you like it? Discuss.
I decided to make some Huey Laforet icons after some prodding about our similarities. Watch me soar. 100x100 150x150 The last four are mediocre in my opinion. What do you think of them? Should I use one? If so, which one should I use? Here is a pack if anyone wants it: http://www.mediafire.com/?gvu0u35j96v6f39 Screw it. It has been brought to my attention that I suffer from chronic centering. I find myself unable to uncenter images in squares and be happy with them. How do I solve this? Suggestion courtesy of Sforzato, he said something like this was better. I assume you will agree... Yet more fixed versions.
I was dared to sing a song by Daxa and post it. I chose "Singing in the Rain" by Gene Kelly. Be warned that I am terrible and I know that I am terrible, so take it with a grain of salt, please. Oh, lord, what am I doing... http://www.mediafire.com/?lalgobn83obg23z
These captchas are starting to look very suspicious. I just got these consecutively, uploading each one after the other. What does it mean?
To Sforzato. Here you go. http://www.mediafire.com/?wlh5dw8o8ubeh99
On my search for this avatar and signature, I found an old thread of mine from 2006. Who would like to see it? In accordance with the votes... Here I am.
You can find it here.
I thought some of you might like this. What are your thoughts? Is there a problem, or is there not one? How should we solve it if there is? Discuss.
This is all that you need to know about anarchism. [video=youtube;dm87bu6vQlM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm87bu6vQlM[/video]
Think about something you’re better-than-average at. Better yet, something you’re good at. Now imagine being required by law – backed by the threat of violence for failure to comply – to dumb yourself down to the level of the average. Performance at a higher level puts you in violation – and subject to punishment. Ridiculous? Of course. But that doesn’t prevent it from being the basis of traffic law (and other laws besides). Consider “jaywalking.†The law says this occurs when a pedestrian crosses a street before an “ok to proceed†light tells him he may. The legal premise is that the average person is too low-performance to gauge when he may safely cross the street. And he may well be. But – and here’s where it gets interesting – rather than using the situation as a teaching moment, our system immediately, reflexively, puts up a crutch (the “walk/don’t walk†light) and – much worse – turns a punitive eye toward the able and competent pedestrians who don’t need the light. Incentives, on the one hand, are created that encourage passivity (mindless compliance) while on the other, another salvo is fired at the exercise of initiative for the sole purpose of defeating it and encouraging an ever-more-passive populace. Think about it. And I choose the word think very deliberately. Why, if the way is clear, should one not cross the street – irrespective of signs and lights? Because it is The Law, will be the reply of the authoritarian equalizer type I call Clovers. And The Law does not consider it relevant whether, in fact, the street was devoid of cars and it was safe therefore to cross. Not only reason but a defense based on the assertion of no harm done is no defense at all. Submit and Obey. That is what’s required. No matter how arbitrary, no matter how unreasonable. Just – do as you are told. Laws against speeding are now similarly premised. There used to be a legally viable defense which amounted to convincing the judge that even though you may have been driving faster than the posted speed limit, the speed you were driving was not unsafe for conditions. The road was a major highway; the day was clear, traffic was light. You get the cop to concede your car was under control, that you were not weaving, drifting or otherwise doing anything obviously dangerous to others. Forget about trying this line of reasoning today. Because today, most speed limit laws are what lawyers call per se speed limit laws. It means you’re guilty of “speeding†regardless of whether it was safe under the specific conditions. In other words, your actual driving is irrelevant. All that matters, legally speaking, is that you have been caught exceeding whatever speed the bureaucrats have posted. Guilty. $300 fine plus court costs. We’ll be sure to let your insurance company know, too. It’s exasperating because it’s both unjust and corrosive. Unjust, because arguably, no one should be subject to punishment absent provable harm having been committed. A truly guilty person (provided he’s not a sociopath) will feel guilt if he has done something to cause harm to another person. And he will accept his punishment with equanimity. After all, he deserves it. This is – or was – a fundamental tenet of Western (and American) law. It found expression in the old saying – no harm, no foul. That has been upended. Now people who do no harm are routinely judged “guilty†who have committed no foul – no harm – at all. And they resent it – rightly. You are just driving along, in full control of your vehicle, in no way causing or threatening to cause harm to anyone. But you are traveling faster than an arbitrarily decreed number. A cop observes you, not driving dangerously, merely driving faster than legally allowed. He pulls you over with much sturm und drang (usually accompanied by a cant-choked lecture about The Law) culminating in the issuance of a piece of paper ordering you to pay a large sum of money for no reason at all – other than your having “exceeded the posted speed limit.†It makes you angry. Think about this. Most of us – who are not sociopaths – would not be angry at being caught (and punished) for having done something to harm others. But to be threatened by an armed man (or woman) merely for flouting some arbitrary convention – some “law†– when you know in your heart (and mind) that you were no threat to anyone? That “the law†in question is a technicality at best and an absurdity at worst? That will make any reasonable person very angry indeed. And righteous anger of that sort is no good for the health of the system. It undermines legitimate law – and legitimate enforcement. It creates enmity where none ought to exist. It is responsible for the transformation of what used to be peace officers into law enforcement officers. Note the distinction. It is important. Peace officers maintain the peace. This is something all but the sociopaths among us would probably agree is desirable. But what does it mean to be a “law enforcement†officer? It means, to be a guy (or gal) with a gun and a badge who enforces whatever law happens to be on the books. To be callously, robotically indifferent to reason. It does not matter to an “LEO†whether you are peaceful and harming no one. Whether you are competent – and your judgment sound. Whether – as in our original example – there was no traffic around and it was perfectly safe to walk across the street, even though the “walk†light hadn’t turned white yet. All that matters to the LEO is – you guessed it – The Law. Your judgment, even if provably sound, makes no difference. Your demonstrated ability to handle something with skill and competence – especially, higher skill and competence than the officially decreed “safe†average (however defined) – will only cause you problems if exercised. Slow down. Stop thinking so much. Wait for the light. Submit. Obey. What are your thoughts on this? I favor any system that makes use of reason and a no harm, no fowl—no victim, no crime—policy. Causing harm to someone who has done no harm is the basis for what we call "crime". If that is the case, then why should we do it in the name of stopping crime? The individual is far more important than any rule by them on principle. Wouldn't you agree?
The 'Groups' link was under 'Community' on the last skin I used. I do not see it anywhere on either of the new skins. I suggest adding it for convenience.
And thought I should share it. It was being used by dark sasuke_101 on OMF. I got him to change it, thank goodness... But, agh, it is so painful to look at. If this serves no other purpose, then take is a lesson on what not to use as an avatar. Thank you...
Since the eleventh post was made in the 'Asexuality' thread in the Discussion section, it has been showing me the following message both in the section, in my subscriptions and on the front page itself. Spoiler As you can see, Mixt is the last poster. I like to see Mixt's posts, so I go into the thread. Let's see what he said... Spoiler As you can see, this is not Mixt. Can you fix this problem? Please and thank you.
A 2008 Swedish film that gets full marks from me. I highly recommend watching it blind (knowing nothing) because that is how I watched it, but if you cannot trust it based purely on my recommendation, then click the spoiler tag below. Though it would be easier to just watch it. Spoiler The film is a romantic horror story based on the book of the same name. In it, a boy named Oskar falls in love with someone who moves into his building. A lot of peculiar events and murders happen around them, and he struggles with the choice of whether or to embrace his feelings and accept the help of his love or reject them for the sake of keeping his morality. If still uninterested, click below for something more revealing... Spoiler It is a vampire film. The best in its genre according to me. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/let_the_right_one_in/ Watch it in Swedish with subtitles. Have you seen it? Will you see it? We need more fans of this gem. I give it ten out of ten and would consider it an extremely valuable addition to my collection. It should not be missed.
I joined a wallpaper thread, turned it into a Lain thread for two generations, got two instances of the following image (one on each thread) and some text. Spoiler My work there is done for the day. Good night, 4chan, and good morning, KHV.
[video=youtube;0PAJNntoRgA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PAJNntoRgA[/video] There are no words.
And I found this article going everywhere about a guy who has seventy one friends in common with me. Here is his Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000474027443 What should I do about him?
R.I.P. Anne McCaffrey, Creator of Pern and The Ship Who Sang Anne McCaffrey wasn't just the inventor of Pern, the world where a whole society is based on dragon-riding. She was also an incredibly influential author who helped transform the way science fiction and fantasy authors wrote about women, and the way all of us thought about bodies and selfhood. She was the first woman to win a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award, as well as a Grand Master of science fiction. Besides the Pern books, McCaffrey wrote the classic space-faring novel The Ship Who Sang, in which a severely disabled girl becomes the core of a starship, or Brainship, with her mind controlling all its major functions. McCaffrey's novel provided a startling new way to think about personhood and the nature of the mind/body connection, but also helped pave the way for a whole subgenre of posthuman space opera, in which heavily modified humans explore space. She told Locus in 2004: I think the best story I ever wrote was 'The Ship Who Sang'. It still causes people to cry, including me. When Todd and I were reading it at Brighton, they had a BBC crew filming it. So there were these BBC cameramen hunkered down filming us, and comes the end of the story (which Todd always reads, because I can't go through it without weeping), I saw that these cameramen had tears rolling down their faces. That's such a thrill — a story I wrote at the beginning of my career, and it's still packin' the house. I wrote that story because I couldn't tell my father, he died in 1953. I remember reading a story — I can't remember the name or that of the author — about a woman searching for her son's brain, it had been used for an autopilot on an ore ship and she wanted to find it and give it surcease. And I thought what if severely disabled people were given a chance to become starships? What if they wanted to do that? I thought, 'Hey, that would be a gorgeous idea.' So that's how 'The Ship Who Sang' was born. McCaffrey's first novel, Restoree, was written in response to the unrealistic depiction of women in science fiction and fantasy. But it was the many Pern novels that sealed her renown. One of my fondest convention memories is of going to Dragon*Con one year and attending a panel about "Emergency Medicine on Pern." There, a group of extremely earnest — but good-humored — people were hashing out exactly what you would do if someone happened to be on Pern and fell of his/her dragon. How would you make a stretcher out of items that were readily available on Pern? How would you keep the fallen rider's dragon from freaking out? And so on. The world of Pern was as real to these people as Atlanta — maybe more so. Anne McCaffrey died today at the age of 85. I wanted to make this thread in her memory. Rest in peace. Your books greatly impacted me and will stick with me for the rest of my life. Thank you for writing. I didn't know where else to post this. Move if you think it needs it.
