Erratica Reduex

I always find myself in the position of saying the equivalent of "Your plan to cheaply reach the South Pole is neat, but I think you really should start heavier clothing than bathing suits, and there's no trees there for you to chop down for firewood".

And for some reason they call me a naysayer.

Reposted from metaquotes: the LJ member ardath_rekha sums up the controversy over the LJ changes by adapting an old Sting song.

In Europe and America
There's a growing feeling of hysteria
Conditioned to comment on all the posts
And the sarcastic tweets and updates of our hosts
Mr. Igrick said "we'll reformat you"
I don't subscribe to this shade of blue
It would be such an ignorant thing to do
If the Russians love their journals too.

How can I save my lovely blog
From ArtLebedev's layout dog
There is no monopoly on design skill
On either side of the blogging hill
Facebook shares the same aesthetic
Regardless of how pathetic
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their journals too.

There's too much historical precedence
To believe your protests of innocence
Is there no such thing as LJ anymore?
It's a site we've never seen before

Mr. Zuckerberg says "We'll assimilate you
And all the rest of the Internet too!"
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their journals too.

We all share the same basic algorithms
Regardless of these design schisms
What might save us, me and you
Is if the Russians love their journals too...

I think they nailed it in one.

Political satire has a long history- it's an interesting fact of humanity that one of the ways people respond to oppression is through satirical words and images, ranging from "a modest proposal, to Tim Kreider combining Liberal protests with Star Wars.  This is also very much true of the Davis demonstrations where Lt. Pike of the campus police pepper sprayed non-violent protesters.

Firstly, never ever underestimate the snark capability of Amazon.com reviewers, especially when they're reviewing Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream, 1.3% Red Band/1.3% Blue Band Pepper Spray.

"When I feel threatened by students, no matter how unarmed, peaceful and
seated they may be, I know that Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream,
1.3% Red Band/1.3% Blue Band Pepper Spray has got my back as I casually
spray away at point blank range."

And then there is the meme of remixing the image of Lt. Pike into other images. Some of them are merely silly, others are trenchent, or even horrifying.

The signing of the Constitution
( Read more... )


Guernica:
( Read more... )


Michael Patrick Mayer of Project Democracy, and Nieman Journalism Lab have articles with additional versions of this photoshop meme, as well as arguments for why this sort of satire is well worth reading. It's worth checking out.

Irony is going into a bookstore and seeing a section titled: "SECRET SOCIETIES".

It seems that in order to pay the mortgage a number of SF writers have jumped on the better selling fantasy genre bandwagon. One would think that their experience in the supposedly more demanding and intellectually rigorous science fiction field would lead to some pretty different fantasy concepts, but well...

Take John Scalzi for example; his new "epic fantasy series" is named..."Shadow War of the Night Dragons".

Oh come ON John, surely you can do better than that. Like maybe "Dark Shadowy Night Shadow War of the Dark Shadowy Night Dragons at Night".

Maybe I'm underestimating this novel, maybe it doesn't have any actual dragons in it, and the name refers to ninjas or assassins. But my hopes aren't exactly up.

Over in the Giant in the Pllayground forums people started a thread about different ways to destroy a large city in D&D. That is, taking down a well defended, populous city the size of say` Forgotten Realm's Waterdeep perhaps.

Unfortunately, most of the suggestions have involved high level magic: plagues, crop destruction, a wight apocalypse, and the like. All of which I find boring and uncreative. Now myself, I could destroy that city with no magic or army at all, just using a maxed-out Diplomacy skill, and time.

Here's how my evil plan would work:

1. Encourage the city to specialize in manufacturing a single product, say an improved version of carts and carriages.

2. At the same time, encourage an Empire-wide, even continent-wide project of good roads, thereby encouraging people to buy the carriages. This provides easy access to and from the city.

3. As the manufacturing boom expands and the city focuses on the very profitable business, encourage the immigration of a disliked race (say, displaced elves maybe) as cheap labor. Encourage unrest and oppression of the downtrodden race.

4. At the same time, encourage the dominant race of the city to actually live outside the city in townships, and commute using the new roads.

5. After about ten-twenty years of this, and when racial tensions get high enough, spark a massive series of riots. This should trigger the wealthy dominant race to use the good road network to leave for greener pastures.

6. Now you're ready to move in for the kill. Suddenly reveal that other cities have been developing a similar manufacturing capability, and that they have been more innovative and responsive in making the product so that the market the city has depended on collapses.

7. And for the Coup de grâce, follow the riots with about 40 years of a corrupt and incompetent city government.

In the end, you'll have a ciity that's a shelll of itself, with no prospects for making things better. Effectively, it will be destroyed. Sure it will take a while, but it's a simple project for say, a half-elf bard with maximized Diplomacy+ of 40+

Fortunately, it's just a game I can't think of any plan so evil happening in the real world.

So in light of the major media hype over mass animal deaths recently, I had to check something. Let's see....






...yeah. Nearly 40 years later, it's STILL an incredibly stupid concept. Because if you're just going to put natural stuff in domes, why not just put it in domes on Earth?

It just doesn't make sense. Even as a government make-work project it makes no sense. It makes so little sense that Bruce Dern looks sane in comparison. It's something so silly only a 1970s audience could take it seriously.

Screw it. I'm gonna go watch Godzilla and Forbidden Planet instead to wash the taste of Silent Running out of my mind.

I watched Braveheart tonight for the first time. As far as historical accuracy and the writing went, well, I kept waiting for Ash and the Deadites to show up, but they didn't, and so eventually I lost interest and wandered away.

This is important information that all Americans should be aware of:

New Age terrorists develop homeopathic bomb

And personally, I'm not at all surprised: I've never trusted that time my sister's boyfriend threatened to brain me with his crystal.

(Edit: Forgot to mention: original story nicked from James Nicoll's blog) Britney Spears shows original pictures of herself next to airbrushed ones. Just to show how the perfection-obsessed world of mass media alters already attractive humans to remove any "imperfections" and make them adhere to an inhuman standard of beauty.

Not that I've ever been a fan of Britney Spears, either her music or the person, but this is actually pretty interesting and frankly, something of a brave move.  In the original pictures Britney is still a fairly attractive woman, but the editing makes her something different, less human, frankly.  It's like the people in charge of advertising are desperate to approach the Uncanny Valley from the other direction, and on some magazine covers and advertisements have succeeded.

Myself, I think the future will probably end up with everyone wearing VR goggles that automatically photoshop away all imperfections in real time.  After all, why stop at magazines if you can 'shop the people themselves?