THOUGHTS ON HUMAN AUGMENTATION.
Archive for 2023
December 2, 2023
THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T WORKING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: Iowa Demolishes Its First 3D Printed House.
Printing of this first house began in May 2023, and nine more were to be completed by the end of the year. Unfortunately, when tested for compressive strength, the cement mixture this first home was printed out of failed to meet the 5,000 PSI minimum required for the project. Rather than compromise on safety, the parties involved decided to knock it down and start over.
I wonder how hideous the first replicator experiments turned out — or will turn out — in Star Trek’s universe?
HOLIDAY SALE: Repel Umbrella Large Umbrellas for Rain Windproof. #CommissionEarned
SQUARING THE CIRCLE IS NOW STREAMING ON NETFLIX: Here’s my review from August: Squaring the Circle: New Documentary Explores How Hipgnosis Created Rock’s Greatest Album Covers.
CASINOS ALREADY KNOW THIS: Research shows human behavior guided by fast changes in dopamine levels.
Also app companies.
BETTER SUICIDE THAN SUICIDE BOMBING: Pro-Palestinian Protester Set Herself on Fire Outside Israeli Consulate in Atlanta.
REMY: Moving to South Dakota. New video from Reason TV:
IT’S PRACTICALLY MAGIC: Moderate regular exercise found to alleviate some symptoms of postpartum depression.
RADICAL WOLFE IS NOW STREAMING ON NETFLIX: Here’s my review from September: Radical Wolfe: Does the New Tom Wolfe Documentary Cover the Man in Full?
BRUCE BAWER: Napoleon: Full of Sound and Fury — But Signifying What?
All artists are at the mercy of timing. Sometimes it benefits them, sometimes not. The fact that Napoleon opened just a few weeks after the monstrosities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 is unfortunate for Scott, not least because his movie begins with a horribly grisly depiction of the guillotining of Marie Antoinette that can’t help reminding you of the decapitations in the kibbutzim and at that dance party in the Negev. And Marie Antoinette, as it turns out, isn’t the only one to lose her head in this film.
To watch Napoleon is to be aghast at his transcontinental butchery — and to ponder his motives. Historians write about his eagerness to spread the French Revolution, topple monarchies, and create a United States of Europe characterized by liberty, equality, and fraternity. But Scott doesn’t seem to be terribly interested in such matters and doesn’t strain to address the obvious contradictions. (Why, for example, would a principled enemy of royalty want to found a dynasty?)
So why did Scott make this picture? Simply to offer a spectacle of sheer savagery on an unimaginable scale? If you’ve seen his earlier work, you know he’s drawn to gore. Yes, Napoleon is better than last year’s remake of All Quiet on the Western Front, but in Scott’s film, unlike Edward Berger’s, there’s never any suggestion that we’re expected to be appalled at the extraordinary and meaningless loss of human life. On the contrary, the idea seems to be to impress us with Napoleon’s mastery of (as the Military History and Atlas put it) the military art.
“So why did Scott make this picture?” Several scenes play like homages to Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 film Barry Lyndon, which itself used the research that Kubrick had banked before MGM pulled the plug on his production of Napoleon. Scott really does seem to want to say that after his modest 1977 film The Duellists, itself inspired by Lyndon, that he’s finally topped the Maestro after all these years. He hasn’t, but it’s tough to fault him for wanting to aim high.
Related: The Critical Drinker wanted to like Napoleon, but is similarly confused by what Scott was hoping to accomplish with his new movie:
AFFLUENT WHITE FEMALE LIBERALS ARE AWFL: VIDEO: White, Pro-Palestinian Karen Doesn’t Have a Clue. “No one knows what they support, or why they support it. That used to be enough to discredit people and ideas, but now it seems like being ‘passionate’ about something is all that matters.”
JEFFREY CARTER: Is it harder for young people today than it used to be?
Certainly if you’re on a college/grad school path it’s gotten vastly more expensive. Plus: “When you are raising kids and building a family, the suburbs are the easiest, cheapest way to do it. Yet, elite urban planners are 100% opposed to the idea of suburbs. . . . I don’t see building codes and housing codes changing anytime soon. It’s too hard to change elite opinions and they are mired in the groupthink of global warming. Instead of single-family homes, they are thinking in terms of multi-family grass huts.” Suburban people raise kids and vote Republican. Can’t have that.
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Chick-fil-A, Buc-ee’s, Hobby Lobby Merge To Form Most Popular Store Of All Time.
AMAZON’S GRAND TOUR SET TO CONCLUDE: The Grand Tour Not Moving Forward at Amazon Prime Video With Hosts Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond.
Amazon Prime Video’s automotive series “The Grand Tour” is not moving forward at the streamer — at least with its current hosts, former “Top Gear” trio Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond.
Sources tell Variety that Clarkson, May and Hammond have just returned from filming the show’s final special in Zimbabwe, which will launch at a later date next year and conclude the fifth season. A special set in Mauritania will launch before that, in February. Though options to continue the series with different hosts are being explored, it has not yet been greenlit. The “Grand Tour” news follows the announcement earlier this week that Clarkson’s other show on Amazon Prime Video, “Clarkson’s Farm,” is getting a fourth season.
Clarkson said in a statement to The Times on Thursday, “We’re done. I have reviewed cars on TV since 1989. That’s 34 years. And after next year, I won’t be doing that any more.”
The presenter further confirmed the news in a post on his Instagram, writing: “Been a busy day. No more ‘Grand Tour’ after next year but a LOT more ‘Clarkson’s Farm.’”
A Grand Tour with younger hosts is being teased:
The trio have just returned from filming in Zimbabwe, which will be their last outing with the series. The next Grand Tour special is set in Mauritania and will launch in February 2024.
The Independent understands that the hit series will not necessarily end with the current hosts’ departure and that other options, including new presenters, are being explored.
Given the multiple stillbirths of Top Gear America and the post Clarkson, Hammond and May Top Gear era on the BBC, I’m not sure if “The Grand Tour: The Next Generation” will work. The original hosts and their chemistry together are what makes the show work, not whatever cars they’re testing or tooling around in that week.
IS ‘LOVE IS LOVE’ TRUE? Remember Boy George and his oft-repeated claim that “all love is good love”? I don’t recall if he was ever asked if loving to murder Jews or loving to throw gays off tall buildings is good love.
But that’s just the beginning of the myths and misrepresentations underlying the “love is love” argument of the Woke, according to the latest “What Would You Say” video from the Colson Center on HillFaith.
IN THE MAIL: As Goes California: My Mission to Rescue the Golden State and Save the Nation. #CommissionEarned
HOW IT STARTED: Wages are rising. Jobs are plentiful. Nobody’s happy.
—Young Adult Website* Vox.com, November 20th.
How it’s going: Vox Media Lays Off 4% of Staff in 2nd Round of Cuts This Year.
Vox Media let employees know Thursday that it was laying off 4% of its staff. The layoffs are primarily in its product, design, technology and analytics team, as well as their animal-focused site, The Dodo.
“This reflects continued turmoil in advertising and the need to build even more loyal audience relationships given the increasing volatility of search and social platforms, among other factors,” a Vox spokesperson said in a statement.
The Vox Media Union said in its own statement, “This news is especially devastating in the midst of the holiday season, and we are furious that management has short-sightedly opted to eliminate these essential roles.” It also noted that the cuts included multiple union members.
Fortunately, there’s a simple answer: Obama: Everybody’s Got to Learn How to Code.
—Vox.com, February 14th, 2015.
FINE, BUT THE BIG GROWTH HAS BEEN IN ADMINISTRATORS, NOT FACULTY: ‘Ambitious’ higher ed reform proposal would fire substantial number of professors.
Related: UW-Madison employs one administrator for every four undergrads: analysis.
TO BOLDLY GO WHERE GRETA HAS GONE BEFORE: Star Trek’s William Shatner warns ‘we’re dying’ as he makes King Charles plea.
Shatner came under fire from fans who reminded the star that he recently went to space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Viewers of the ITV programme took to social media to protest his warning.
One moaned: “William Shatner didn’t care about the climate when he went into space polluting the air with rocket fuel, a case of do what I say but not what I do.” While someone else said: “@GMB Williams Shatner, on your news, is a hypocrite and all these people travelling around the world talking about climate change.”
Another raged: “Did I just hear that right? William Shatner who apparently went to space says climate change is due to stupid people.” While a fourth fan posted: “The irony. William Shatner, the man that went to the edge of space in the Blue Origin for fun. Hypocrisy at its absolute finest.”
He became the oldest person to travel to space in 2021, experiencing several minutes of weightlessness as the rocket hit zero-G. But his trip left him feeling grief and an “overwhelming sadness”, writing in his book Boldly Go: “The extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna … things that took 5 billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread.
“My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.” He said the wealthy should be “trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live.”
If only Shatner had made his bones portraying a man who lived in an optimistic view of the world’s future, perhaps he wouldn’t be so filled with stereotypical leftist Malthusian doom. Especially when the first go-around of Star Trek reruns competed against so much early ’70s doomsday porn:
WHY ARE OUR UNIVERSITIES SUCH CESSPITS OF HATRED? POLL: Nearly 3 in 4 Jewish students report experiencing anti-Semitism following Hamas attack. Less than half feel “physically safe” on campus.
I HOPE WE’RE NOT TOO MESSIANIC, OR A TRIFLE TOO SATANIC: Cosmo Promotes Satanic Abortion Ritual: Killing Babies to “Empower” Women.
.@Cosmopolitan who claim to be the “largest young women’s media brand in the world” promoted a “satanic abortion” ritual to empower women getting abortions. This is demonic. pic.twitter.com/1CJPXuFcxY
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 30, 2023
Earlier: We Are Repaganizing.