NannerBanner

joined 7 months ago
[–] NannerBanner@literature.cafe 0 points 2 months ago

Well, you might be able to talk a library into hosting a 'computer education' class weekly or monthly, with a focus on linux, but I highly doubt you're going to be paid for it. It would certainly have to be a passion project, just to get people off of windows more.

[–] NannerBanner@literature.cafe 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

American soldiers are taught to be thinkers, and reject unlawful orders!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-some patriot somewhere at sometime in some comment area

[–] NannerBanner@literature.cafe 3 points 2 months ago

There are still places that 'value' those things, it's just all bunk. I know of a local department that requires applicants to have a college degree. It's just that (some) college(s) has both become a degree mill, and there are plenty of places 'captured' by conservative thought/material.

You could still be a fool, and a bigoted asshole, and graduate no problem. Even just going by intelligence, it's not like being intelligent carries with it concern for your fellow man. There are brilliant individuals who are every bit evil.

I think that the overall push for why police are the way they are is that only certain types want to be a cop in the first place, much more so than intelligence, education, or desire to find truth in scientific ways.

[–] NannerBanner@literature.cafe 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The fact that two supervisor types watched a video, claimed that nothing was done wrong, and then the highest supervisor watched the same damn video and flat out said there needed to be an investigation... and then nothing was done to those supervisors? That's some bullshit. Charges being brought against an officer should mean that everyone who tried to cover for said officer should be shitcanned as well.

[–] NannerBanner@literature.cafe 2 points 2 months ago

Lol. That would be quite the head turner if I overheard.

[–] NannerBanner@literature.cafe 2 points 2 months ago

Damn you for reminding me.

[–] NannerBanner@literature.cafe 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Back in my day we just called that a double dutch rudder.

[–] NannerBanner@literature.cafe 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not effectively. The amount of dispersed chemicals is going to spread far beyond what a leaf blower could push back. Even an entire front row of leaf blowers isn't going to be effective, because they don't just launch these in front of you. Are you going to leaf blow the gas towards the back of the crowd when you turn around?

[–] NannerBanner@literature.cafe 2 points 2 months ago

Not that video, but I remember another one from a little more than a decade ago where the guy was talking the entire time, explaining the process (and joking at one point about how only the new guys constantly used both safety hooks because it doubled or tripled the time of the work). Then you realize that there was another fella climbing with him when they get up on the little platform.

[–] NannerBanner@literature.cafe 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Not really subtle, but it's different, right? With fortunate son, there's this weirder dynamic where you have to actually string the entire thing together to gather the meaning. I would say unless you went and asked someone to repeat the lines to you after the song is over and tell you what they meant, they would never really 'get' what the song is saying.

I was going to reply to the uwu pawb about that, but it's really difficult to put it into words. There's something about a really catchy song with really good flow and rhythm and melody and composition that does sort of turn your brain off. It 'bypasses' the logical language part of your brain's comprehension and just gets you grooving. If I were a bettor, I would put money on it being the same reason that people with stutters can often sing without issue: it's the same part of the brain (Broca's area, if you want to pull out my neuroscientist days) that issues the commands to the muscles of the mouth and tongue and such, but the area that is directing Broca's area is different (there's an area called Wernicke's area that is really heavily involved in the comprehension of language; it's on the left side of the brain, while a great deal of your musical appreciation bits are in the right side of the brain [and I'm definitely getting far out of my knowledge base here, it's been a great while since I did brain and specific tasks]). If you just listen/sing to the music, and never pull it up out of the memory banks and into your 'logical' part of the brain, you'll never really engage with the meaning of the music/song.

Anyway. I don't know quite how to describe it, but like nicki said, if you just sing the chorus of independence day, you'd probably not get the song's imagery, but the verses are more straightforward and easy to comprehend in mcbride's song than in creedence's. I'm just more surprised about it being misunderstood than fortunate son, I guess, more than I'm totally surprised.

[–] NannerBanner@literature.cafe 7 points 2 months ago

Legolas is just tired of trying to explain why a red sun is different. Humans and dwarves just don't have the photoreceptors to see green.

[–] NannerBanner@literature.cafe 20 points 2 months ago

Look at this dude and his sexual awakening in 4th grade. Some of us didn't even get the memo as adults.

 

So the other day someone linked to a website that highlighted how much information is just gifted to any place you visit on the web.

I'm aware of some of it being intrinsic to the manner of connection. A website knowing your IP (even if that is the IP of the vpn or tor exit node you're using) is basically essential to the function of the internet. Why everything else though? What fucking idiot/asshole decided to even have an api for your gpu? Why the fuck is my browser reporting on the battery status? Light/dark mode? Visibility (whether or not the tab is 'active', the fuck?!? My OS?!!???!?!!!?!?!?

As a side question, why is the capability built in by a browser, but the user is never given a choice about whether or not any of this is shared?

 

I just finished this book after a breathless three days, and wow, it was a doozy. Warning, MASSIVE spoilers ahead, and this is a book that definitely should not be spoiled. All of the tension and interesting details would float away without being anchored by the slowly growing awareness of what is happening.

I'm not much of a 'reviewer' of books. I love reading them but mostly place them back on the shelf until I want to relive the events again. Thus be warned, this isn't going to be a treasure trove of insight, but much more along the lines of a longer blurb piquing the interest in the book.

spoilerSo where to begin? I suppose with my shock. This was a novel written 41 years ago, but it is horribly relevant our current times. I was not anticipating the 'big secret' at all from the short description of the book. I got the book's title from a list of horror, which really speaks to the lackluster ability of the list's author, because I would not describe the book as a horror book. The tension of the book lies along an axis of thrillers far more than horror. The reader is never really fearful of what may come, but is anticipating what shocking thing occurs next.

The big reveal at the end was almost certainly more shocking to readers at the time, and my first thought was how eerily familiar it seemed. I then remembered the john money controversy about david reimer, but the wikipedia article says it didn't come to international attention until 1997, more than a decade after the wasp factory came out. Just a strange coincidence? I know Banks had a relatively progressive view of gender/sexuality in his writing. His culture books casually describe a society where people switch back and forth between human and monster, male and female, digitized computer files and organic matter, seemingly at whim. It almost seems counterintuitive that he sets the impulses and motivations of the protagonist as caused by the conflict within due to the secret.

Anyway, back to the book itself.

It's neatly written. Little tidbits of information are dangled in front of the reader while the main character pursues day-to-day life. It's a very strange life, but more so in its extremes than the actual matters. I know the many strange ways bored kids can take up to amuse themselves in the rural fields and isolated days, and building bombs and torturing insects (while horrific in hindsight) isn't far removed from reality. The magical thinking displayed by the character is pretty tame for someone younger, and only mildly out of sorts due to the late teenage years that the protagonist currently sits at.

The story moves along at a good pace, never really boring the reader. Moments of tension are placed nicely to keep interest between the various murders and banal days. The murders themselves are nicely done. Just enough plausibility to not break verisimilitude, both in their possibility and the mentality of the protagonist in carrying them out.

The protagonist's inner dialogues and thoughts are where the real meat of the book is. It's a fascinating read, just like finding someone's personal diary, and keeps your eyes eager for more explanations of why there are mouse heads hanging from poles, mocked-up villages being destroyed, and wars waged on various small animal dens.

One bit I didn't like (I had to roll my eyes) was the 'mental break' of the protagonist's brother. Of all the tropes regarding mental illness and insanity, the idea of some horribly overwhelming tragic or scarring event suddenly sending someone into the madhouse is the trope I most abhor. I've dealt with a great many people who have had horrific events happen to them, and with many people who aren't entirely in sync with reality, and none of them provide positive evidence for such a thing. It's a trope from hokey comic books and bad movies.

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