A mystic is free to locate love outside the existential maze. A materialist has no such luxury. But even if you're forced to admit that love is a drug, not essentially different from any other drug - you can still hold the opinion that love is the *best* drug.

idk but I'm a lot less worried about the USA now than I was in the summer. The administration'll still do everything it can (deny, bully, lie, cheat, etc) to cling to power. So people still need to be prepared for that. But it feels like they're on the back foot now.

We can all measure the price of ground beef at the supermarket. No federal report needed.

If he actually controlled all sources of information, that would be effective. But, like the Epstein redactions, the greater the cover up, the greater the attention. A Streisand Effect.

He knows it's all falling apart. This is a clear reaction to that. He's going to be lashing out more and more as things get worse and worse for him. As I said in a previous post, it's called an 'extinction burst'...and it's happening now in real time.

This mural has gone up in Kingston, ostensibly for Christmas but AI has ensured it's actually to celebrate the return of our dark lord Cthulhu

"I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards."

I couldn't figure this one out until I translated it to: "You wouldn't say it's elitist to read the spec of the programming language you claim to be a programmer of" And I don't know if I've heard those actual *words*, but I believe I have been in the presence of that attitude more than once

Others turn their attention to questions like, what does it mean to be the BEST artist. What does that even mean

1 frame: "cartoon" 3 frames: "comic" (strip) 30 frames: "comic" (book) 300+ frames: "cartoon"

I don't know who needs to hear this but you don't need to make art if it doesn't make you happy to make art

tfw your Federal Statistical System have permanently been damaged

I'm sorry, "I'm sorry, this isn't something the Democratic Party can help you with" isn't something I can help you with Still happy to provide support on the sane people vs fascist liars thing though

When your function is to go up on stage and go "ooga booga" to your audience of broken-brains, does it matter if you understand how insurance works or not? It does not.

For #NaNoGenMo this year I decided to try to write a generator in Rust, with the goal of learning #Rust. Why? Because, umm... one questionable idea deserves another?

Where are the high-key debunkings of "SNAP was being given away willy-nilly under Biden" and "The law prevents funding SNAP under shutdown"? These need to be waved in MAGAs face. You'd have to be a real monster to support SNAP removal knowing these things are false, and people *know* it.

we talk too much about the male loneliness crisis and not enough about the male suckerfication crisis maxread.substack.com/p/prediction...

I now see this as similar to the tariffs. All whip, no carrot, "the market will adapt". Ayn Rand invisible hand type stuff. I don't think the administration actually holds these economic theories so much as they're appealing to a base who do. They're in it for the cruelty. Eliminate the parasites!

For those interested in computer generated writing, including but going way beyond #AI, check out #NaNoGenMo, starting today it’s 13th yearly tradition of dedicating the month of November to writing code that generates a 50k word novel and sharing it and the code on GitHub. nanogenmo.github.io #elit

NaNoGenMo started in 2013. Back then there were quite a few people who were playing around with generating text through grammars and other Natural Language Processing techniques. Ultimately, 19 people considered their generators complete. Getting 50k semi-interesting words was a challenge.

If I push my delusional narrative hard enough, it will become reality! And if you object that that premise is delusional, well, I can just apply it to itself! It's delusions all the way down! Do you believe that?

The Good News: Well, you've probably already heard the good news. The Bad News: The increasing likelihood of the other side reacting like a cornered wild animal. The Good News pt 2: The increasing likelihood of a cornered wild animal making serious mistakes and scoring an own goal.

#abstractsurrealism #modernabstract #abstractdigitalart #generativeart #nftcollectibles #art #abstractart #digitalart #modernart #artlovers #BlueSkyArt

January 29, 2019 #abstract #abstractart #art #artcollector ##artist #artgallery #gallery #dailyart #dailypainting #digitalart #digitalpaint #fineart #paintings #procreate #artistic #artlover #patreon #patreonart #modernart Copyright 2019 Schonic All rights reserved.

I'm more worried about the masses of supporters that don't understand the difference, than Trump not understanding the difference. The weaponization of stupidity is the point. If Trump is removed, Vance is going to have some big shoes to fill, pretending he doesn't understand the difference.

Remarkably evil stuff

Being an old timer, I firmly believe that a game should consist entirely of mechanics and that its culture should be transmitted exclusively by the comic book that ships with the cartridge archive.org/details/yars...

You know why he wants to attack Nigeria now? They have ALOT of Crude Oil and a Wide Variety of Minerals. There's more violence in Sudan than Nigeria with Christians being killed there as well. Google all of this and you will see I'm correct in my statements.

For better or worse, tools are communities. Would you use a tool that is not very good at what it does, but very popular? Many people do: for more easily getting support for using the tool, for more job opportunities for using the tool, maybe even for a sense of belonging. "This is my tribe".

I'm not political, really. I'm not trying to be "on the left". I'm just trying to be "not insane". If that happens to fall "on the left" in the current milieu, then so be it.

Just so we're clear: Yes, Venezuela has significant oil reserves. No, oil cannot be extracted from those reserves by battleships. To do that, you would need ... [gestures vaguely] additional equipment.

One must imagine Sisyphus happy. Like he's got some kind of rock-rolling ASMR thing going on. Can't get enough of that *rumbling*.

Ah. Beginning to look the part, I see. They're feeling dug in enough now to be more overt with the iconography. Earlier today it occurred to me to wonder when Elon's going to add four skewed serifs to that 'X' of his...

Although there is still an element of "Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat" to this one, I now also detect a distinct drift towards "Kim Jong-Il does not defecate and posesses the power to bend time and space".

In 1982, Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a live bat, on stage. His fans didn't call him "unhinged". They loved it. It fed into his image. You have to analyze these things this Trump guy says, the same way. It doesn't matter to his fans how insane they are. They feed into his image.

"For consistency we could establish a naming convention." "Well that's just aesthetics isn't it." "Well it's also about cognitive load." "Hey does that imply that cognitive load is a factor in aesthetics." "Hey it does." "And what does that say about symmetry and tiling."

It's just that whenever I see someone say "Just wait til the midterms!" I'm like, ahh, no, *just waiting* is unwise because it's unlikely that there will *be* meaningful midterms. Apply pressure peacefully and legally and ideally with material consequences. Shame may be dead but money still talks.

The rational assumption at this point is that they're going to do everything possible - both within and outside the law - to prevent free and fair elections. Thus the chances of solving this at the polling booth is low. Thus be prepared to take more drastic measures, such as a general strike.

Autumn Tree | Egon Schiele

I'm straining to imagine the set of Americans who don't care about this event one way or another. One way: yes The other: also yes Not one way or the other: who ARE these people

Don't know what else to say but once a regime has demonstrated a propensity for cheating like hell, it's unwise to assume it'll be possible to vote them out next time elections are held. They'll cheat like hell on those too, see? You need to be prepared to take more drastic action to remove them.

The US dollar is the world's primary reserve currency, but obviously, if it tanks, that'll change. And crypto is not an attractive substitute for that role.

'Gardening.' (c1945) Discussing Stanley Spencer's subjects of this period, the critic Eric Newton wrote: 'he tends to accumulate objects in his pictures, to relate them to each other dramatically rather than visually, and, above all, to paint them in sharp, harsh definition.'

Accidental art work on house wall #foundrelief #accidentalartwork

dear US friends, when a sitting president (re)builds the seat of government, it almost always means the president has no intention of leaving at the end of term. your African friends with decades of experience

I have to admit, I hadn't considered the possibility that the demolition of the East Wing could just be a cover for something more insidious. It's not impossible. Either way, damn straight they're not leaving willingly. They're going to do their dishonest utmost to stay in power indefinitely.

If this is true, it makes a lot of things make more sense. It should say "not JUST sex traffickers" though.

'The Birch Grove, autumn.' Tom Thomson was a great colourist; he painted blood-red sunsets, ominous storms and clouds of every shape and kind; he had a concentrated way of seeing, a Wiliam Blake kind of vision, which made the ordinary extraordinary. This is from 1915.

The squatter paradigm for despotic takeover.