Indulge us, Gentle Readers, as this blog takes a slight detour from its normal format.
...
...
(Stop that. We totally have a format!)
Ahem...
We need about 40 people with thick skin to pretend to be ninjas for 6-10 minutes a day.
Billy Versus Snakeman is a fun little time waster that, despite being a flash game, allows a surprising amount of cooperative and team play. The premise is that you're stereotypical anime ninjas, with a whole set of ninja goals, but you are also part of a ninja village and your participation and doing village duties makes the village stronger. Once in a while there are cooperative team events like a zombie zombja attack on the village that require some player coordination in tactics, but not time online. Its silly fun and free.
However....
Villages can have a population of up to 50 but require a certain level of participation to keep from falling apart every night...and that's where the guys in marketing screwed up.
You see, there was a time (long ago) when SNOWFLAKE was a word that referred to a meteorological phenomenon involving a particular manifestation of ice-1-N under specific conditions as part of a hydrological cycle. Given the lack of any any negative connotations, and the location of one of the decision makers in the foothills of the Great Snowy Mountains, the decision was made to name the village SNOWFLAKE.
Regrettably, as the language has shifted, membership has dropped, hence the call for ninjas with tough skin who are willing to dodge the particular slings, arrows and throwing stars that "Snowflake Ninjas" must endure, secure in the knowledge that what does not cause us to die of embarrassment makes us stronger, faster and more sneaky!
If you have the GUTS to be a Snowflake (or are just feeling vaguely ironic) click on this here linky-poo and let your adventure begin!
1
Interesting that they can make them grab their skirts and move them. Although I've noticed a lot of jittering too in the skirts. MMD has come a long way.
Wonder if it's available in English now?
Posted by: Mauser at Fri May 4 23:31:15 2018 (h8yX6)
2
That was really well done. The physics and movement is realistic and beautiful, and the dress "fabric" was imaginative and attractive. Avoided the uncanny valley, too.
Of course, it helped that the "film editing" and camera angles were flattering to the animation. But they are supposed to be.
Thanks for pointing out this video!
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Sat May 5 15:46:15 2018 (h8yX6)
Sorry about the blog outage just now. Was fixing the recent comments and search functions as I've been meaning to for the past three months and I slipped and somehow set the cat on fire.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thu May 3 10:02:22 2018 (PiXy!)
2
So, pro tip: keep a spare cane around so you don't end up getting arrested for Suspicious Hobbling.
If this happened to me, I'd have to choose between the waxwood bo staves and the monopods. I'm not sure which would get me in more trouble on a college campus, but I definitely wouldn't get far if I picked the suburi-tō...
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Thu May 3 11:46:21 2018 (h8yX6)
3
+1 on the spare cane. You can get a basic adjustable metal one at any drug store pretty cheap.
Some non-snarky advice[1] (which assumes the cane is new and/or temporary): if you're going to be using it long-term, learn to take it with you from room to room so you don't lose it. Also, like you presumably do with your keys, wallet, etc., decide on places where you're going to keep it: next to your bed, on the right-hand side in your easy chair, etc, etc. Makes it a LOT easier to find it when you lose it.
[1] from someone who had to train his wife to do this because she kept losing it.
Posted by: Rick C at Thu May 3 11:58:53 2018 (h8yX6)
Posted by: Rick C at Thu May 3 11:59:18 2018 (h8yX6)
5
Congrats on straightening things out with the school! Just watch them that they don't screw you over on expiring courses again, they seem to like doing that too much.
+1 on keeping spares, though another pro-tip, collapsible walking sticks are inexpensive (~$15-30 on Amazon) and take up a small enough amount of room to easily store in a vehicle. That way, even if you are away from home, you'll have something available.
Posted by: StargazerA5 at Thu May 3 14:34:27 2018 (h8yX6)
6
Walmart actually has a decent selection of canes, information that came in handy when my mom forgot hers on a recent wine-country tour. We picked up a very nice collapsible model for a decent price.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Thu May 3 19:04:10 2018 (h8yX6)
7
If you're going to get a cane, you should go <a href="http://www.swordcane.com/">all in</a>.
Posted by: jabrwok at Fri May 4 07:52:14 2018 (h8yX6)
8
Hmm. Guess I should've used that "preview" function. Oh well.
Posted by: jabrwok at Fri May 4 07:52:49 2018 (h8yX6)
9
The problem with sword canes is that they're only useful as a sword if you don't really need a cane. Also, the day will come when you forget about the blade and try to enter a federal building or pass through airport security. I'd rather go old-school.
That said, I poked around on their site, and if I were in a state where it was legal to own one, and I didn't have a better use for a thousand bucks, and I were trained to fight with a 17.5" double-edged knife, I'd seriously consider it.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Fri May 4 09:44:37 2018 (h8yX6)
10
I am dismayed by your misfortunes, but impressed by your tenacity and good luck!
Get that sheepskin! Beat it like a rug!
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Fri May 4 09:53:22 2018 (h8yX6)
It was such a good post. I was so happy right up until I hit "post"...
Was fixing the recent comments and search functions as I've been meaning to for the past three months
I slipped and somehow set the cat on fire.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Fri May 4 10:26:16 2018 (h8yX6)
12
My cane turned out to be with my parents in their house in North Carolina. Fortunately I got my sister to drop off the crutches I'd lent her last year.
In other news, I got a 112 on one of my exams. I'm not entirely sure how the math works on that but I'm not going to inquire too closely.
I swear however, that no cats were set on fire during the cram session.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Fri May 4 10:37:46 2018 (h8yX6)
13
You must have at least slightly scorched a small cat to get 112.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sat May 5 01:09:52 2018 (PiXy!)
14
J. Greely: "The problem with sword canes is that they're only useful as a sword if you don't really need a cane"
Sometimes just having something can be more important than how well you can use it. Somebody I used to know who was wheelchair bound related a story to me once about how they were wheeling to their car when they became aware they were being followed by a couple of younger people whose demeanor suggested they weren't intending to offer assistance. This fellow wheeled around to face them, calmly removed one of his footrests and held it in his hands while just looking at them. The youths decided to find other prey.
Posted by: StargazerA5 at Sun May 6 19:32:11 2018 (h8yX6)
15
Oh, I agree that a weapon, any weapon, and the will to use it, is better than the lack of either. I just meant that drawing the (short) sword out of your cane leaves you without a cane, so you've compromised your mobility at exactly the moment you need it most.
(of course, being in California, it's illegal for me to have any sort of weapon that's disguised as a cane, so I'd have to settle for a cane-cane, hence my preference for sturdy hardwood)
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Sun May 6 21:23:44 2018 (h8yX6)
1
Ouch! Okay, things look bad, but take a deep breath, calm down, and work the problem. Do what you can and what you can't help, remediate as best you can. You can do this and get through in the end.
Posted by: StargazerA5 at Wed Apr 25 20:43:28 2018 (h8yX6)
2
Well, poo. Don't give up. Not that I expect you ever would...
Astonishingly, There are Things Happening in the World Besides Term Papers and Exams
This is one of the most interesting...
The bit about the Black Financial University site getting demonetized is interesting and downright scary. It looks like algorithims and outrage mobs are threatening to turn the internet into something as bland and even more risk averse than the 3 networks were pre-cable.
As a child growing up in the era after the first attempts by network standards and practices departments to appease the outrage mobs, I can attest to the sort of place that leads to.
Oh. Dear.
Yeah kids, the future's gonna be THAT bad if GoogleFacebookAmazon runs it.
A quick perusal of Maven's activism page leaves me somewhat less sanguine than Mr. McCollum, but still very hopeful. We eagerly await further developments there and elsewhere.
1
Interesting point that the algorithms the big players (Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Netflix) use to manage their content are FUCKING TERRIBLE.
A channel focused on finance education in the black community use the word "black" in a video title? DEMONETIZE! A channel about mathematics uses the word "derangement" (a type of mathematical permutation)? DEMONETIZE! Request manual review? DENIED!
3
"Interesting point that the algorithms the big players (Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Netflix) use to manage their content are FUCKING TERRIBLE. "
I guess this shouldn't be a surprise when you consider that if you buy something on Amazon you'll be seeing ads for it for a week, which is literally the worst possible time for showing that ad.
Posted by: Rick C at Tue Apr 24 10:10:39 2018 (h8yX6)
UPDATE: This is why MMD was invented. The song is a semi-pro fan cover of the OR3O number from the horror game Bendy and the Ink Machine. The animator did this video of the cover with some stock MMD background bits. But unlike so many MMD dance vids there is no stock, downloadable choreography for this song. She didn't download and re-skin this...she actually animated it. The art direction and the little Betty Boop chibis just ...work. This isn't point and click/copy paste, this is an actual fan animation. "Puccagarukiss" did a really good job with this. She has Patreon and Ko-Fi accounts.
The other, shorter version, according to their credits used a stock stage and Monika model (I'm somewhat astonished that there was a stock Monika) but their animation/choreography is markedly different, so they had to have done it themselves.
1
Oif, still not a fan of rapidly animating Iris sizes....
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Apr 15 12:45:06 2018 (h8yX6)
2
It's impressive just how perfect this song is for Monika...
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sun Apr 15 21:55:43 2018 (h8yX6)
3
Song is stuck in my head this last day or so. Reading up on the game for context makes it make even more sense. Also, related links led to another short video by this animator using this model.
Posted by: Mauser at Tue Apr 17 20:19:35 2018 (h8yX6)
4
Well, I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who's become a little obsessed with this song. Just blows my tiny little mind, it does.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Fri Apr 20 17:25:30 2018 (h8yX6)
5
About the only fault I find with the video are the long stretches during the musical bridges where Alice Angel (Did my research!) isn't on screen, but if it's all original choreography, I can kind of see why.
Posted by: Mauser at Sat Apr 21 10:20:53 2018 (h8yX6)
1) Given that Trump had announced that he was preparing to leave Syria, what possible motivation could Assad have had for doing the one thing likely to invite a violent response?
2) If The U.S. , France, the U.K and Russia (all of whom are nuclear powers) have a 'tiff', who, praytell, would benefit in the long term geostrategically? (I don't think it includes the U.S., The U.K., France or Russia).
1
I suspected the gas attack might have been a strategic move by one of the Syrian rebel groups until the Russians came out and blamed it on Britain, which was such a stupid lie that it says it must have been Assad and they are pissed that he got out of hand just when everything was going their way.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sat Apr 14 05:32:40 2018 (PiXy!)
2
[[quote] until the Russians came out and blamed it on Britain,
The Russians did what now!?
Oh, dear.
Yeah that's just not a serious alibi. You're right, somebodies not even trying. .
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Apr 14 11:28:00 2018 (h8yX6)
Oh
Some years ago I was taking a class on historical methods. This involved learning proper citation and research techniques for HISTORY MAJORS. This was a 300 level course. Everyone in it was at least interested in HISTORY.
The course was taught around the Holocaust, on the third day of class (my first day) a young lady tapped me on the shoulder and quietly asked a word that the instructor kept repeating in his lecture, but had given no explanation for, as if it was somehow supposed to be common knowledge...
"What's an Auschwitz?"
"A NAZI concentration camp. One of the big ones."
"A what?'
"..."
The scariest thing about this is that in the course of the class it became clear that his young woman was not actually stupid. She was quite bright. She just didn't know.
More than one-fifth of millennials in the U.S. -- 22 percent -- haven'theard of, or aren't sure if they've heard of, the Holocaust, according to a study published Thursday,
...
...
Two-thirds of millennials could not identify in the survey what Auschwitz was.
1
Some years ago, I was sitting at lunch in the dining room of my old college. In the course of the conversation, someone mentioned Rommel. Out of the eight people at the table, he and I were the only two who knew whom he was talking about.
On another occasion, someone who had just seen Ian McKellen's version of Richard III asked me whether that "really happened in England in the 1930s."
Posted by: Edward at Thu Apr 12 22:04:09 2018 (h8yX6)
2
I almost don't want to blame her for this. The real problem is the way that US history courses are taught in the US.
They're almost always presented in two parts, one covering everything up to and through the Civil War, one covering everything after that. And that works pretty well for the first half - plenty of time to go over the early colonies, the founding fathers, the events of the Revolution, the westward expansion, and the Civil War and a bit of Reconstruction.
And then you get the other half of the course, which was crowded twenty years ago and now has another twenty years to cover since then. The real problem here is that you've got a lot of history teachers that love to go over every movement in the progressive era in lavish detail - the establishment of organized labor, the women's suffrage movement, the evils of Jim Crow, etc. Students will probably have a lot of extra reading assignments on the virtues of these progressives and the evils of capitalist greed (personally I had The Jungle twice...) You'll get the Great Depression in super high-def Smellovision, down to the point of memorizing three-letter acronyms of legislation ninety years old (and yeah, because it's on the test).
And then you hit 1939, and the teacher looks up and notices, crap! It's already late April and they've got another fifty years to cover in three weeks, plus final exams. I didn't really get a single decent unit on World War 2 in the several history classes I had growing up. I had to teach one of them, since the teacher straight-up admitted she didn't know a lot about it and wasn't that interested in it. Then directly after you've got the McCarthy era (can't miss that) and the counterculture era (can't miss that), but maybe five minutes apiece on Korea and Vietnam.
Really what they need is at least another semester in order to cover more stuff. Probably easier to carve that out than to negotiate down the Six Month Advertisement for the Democratic Party (except, of course, we won't mention party affiliation when talking about Jim Crow!) Break it out so that you've got one semester to spend on 1870s through the 1920s, one for the Great Depression era through 1950, one for everything since then?
(World History classes have the same problem in spades with big casino - there's an awful lot of World and they usually only have one year to cover the whole damn thing. Rarely do they cover the 20th century worth a damn, but with more excuse.)
Ultimately you can't learn everything about history in school. I'm just shy of 40, and someone who reads history books as a hobby, and with an IQ high enough I can't reasonably brag about it and be believed online, and I still have big holes in my body of knowledge. I know just about nothing about Australian history outside of WW2, for example; not much about Canada either. I'm pretty fuzzy on the history of the Red Revolution up to the late 30s. There are entire wars in Europe in the 1800s that I have barely heard of. And I'm actually interested in this stuff and have made an effort to patch holes beyond my usual interests.
But yeah, this sort of thing... I'll bet you every one of those kids heard of the internment of Japanese during WW2.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Fri Apr 13 18:37:06 2018 (h8yX6)
3
I had a similar experience, talking with a friend and the topic of WWII came around, and we mentioned Auschwitz and his 19 year old (at the time) housemate in all innocent honesty interrupted us and asked, "Who's Auschwitz?"
We educated him. Because his public schools did not.
Posted by: Mauser at Fri Apr 13 20:54:28 2018 (h8yX6)
4
Too bad that the History Channel stopped being the "hitler channel" and became a "aliens are here channel".
Perhaps students ought to read this reddit forum and watch a few of the recommended youtube channels.
https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/7b623h/youtube_channels_to_learn_history/
Posted by: jon spencer at Fri Apr 13 21:23:07 2018 (h8yX6)
Advertisement...Or Warning?Some have noted a few trends in higher education that have seen abominably foetid, baleful, glutinous, ichorous, noxious, vile, unclean and warped notions that have been shambling implacably into university curricula like some repellant, slimy tentacle secreting leprous, parasitic, ghastly, bilious, zymotic, jabbering madness.
5
Alt Furries are mostly in it for the Lulz, because it makes the SJW Furries go around the bend (further). Lefties have no sense of humor, so they think the Alt-Furries are serious. This causes the SJW Furries all kinds of angst because Tolerance is their raison de etre, and they believe they are so oppressed. So needing to adopt the oppressor role doesn't come as easily to them as it does other SJWs.
Posted by: Mauser at Wed Apr 11 21:33:25 2018 (h8yX6)
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Thu Apr 12 15:29:23 2018 (h8yX6)
7
I may have quit it a long time ago, but I have friends who are still in. and I watched it go from a comics and art fandom in the 80's into utter trash in the 90's. The trend towards Fursuiting is, believe it or not, an improvement.
I published an art 'zine for 14 years, had a lot of pro level artists in it, but I could see the writing on the wall and shut it down as the web took over. I was, regrettably, a BNF. Even ran a Con art show for three years (And ran it VERY well). But I quit very publicly, and in spite of the stalkers (and I had some beauts) saying I'd be back, well, I'm not.
Anime is actually a return to my fannish roots from before Furry.
Posted by: Mauser at Thu Apr 12 21:11:05 2018 (h8yX6)
This fellow, no doubt, represents the greatest fear of the identitarians. The fate of our society hangs on how many of us define themselves this way.
Minor Quibble: OK, a select fire switch does not confer magical combat prowess, and its absence does not render one helpless, as our troops have learned from all those Martini-Henrys and Mosins in the Hindu Kush.
In the Queue...
...are 2 papers for History, a "New Math" test on Monday, a presentation for my Kanji Project, several pages of Japanese homework, a presentation for my International Relations class, as well as a term paper and multiple readings for the same.
In the done file are the Kanji Project, a Kanji Test, a "New Math" test a history paper, lots of readings and the Easter Rush at work.
In neither category are any blogposts at the moment.
Instead, I leave a mystery for you to ponder and hopefully solve,...
1
Once upon a time, wool hosen (and eventually socks) were kept from falling down the leg by a contrivance called a garter. Garters were usually tied to some kind of belt or leg cinch. They existed because elastic did not, and were worn by both sexes.
In current Japanese art, one frequently sees the garter belt reimagined as a skirt accessory worn on the outside, or as a ribbon extending from the skirt. The problem is that only an elastic substance could possibly work in such a way, that leather is not elastic, and that boots do not fall down the leg in the same way nylon hose or socks do. Possibly this is a picture from a universe where leather can be knitted.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Sat Mar 31 17:59:11 2018 (h8yX6)
2
Or perhaps she is just wearing a mismatched pair of socks, as well as boots? And for some reason, she only has a garter installed on one leg?
In that case, the elasticity would be all in the wool sock, and it could work. But it might be hard on the sock, unless it were knitted with reinforced holes for the buckle tongue to go through.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Sat Mar 31 18:04:16 2018 (h8yX6)
3What are they for?
Steampunk!
How are they fastened without tripping her?
More Steampunk!
What the hell?
Still Steampunk!
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sat Mar 31 19:22:43 2018 (h8yX6)
4
Obviously they're to secure the leather apron she wears when working on hot engines. Wouldn't want to ruin all that smooth, creamy skin with steam burns!
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Sat Mar 31 22:28:05 2018 (h8yX6)
Posted by: Clayton Barnett at Sun Apr 1 10:35:43 2018 (h8yX6)
7
Stop analyzing it! You're not just killing catgirls, but you're killing Steampunk catgirls!
And SuburbanBanshee, we're not talking about the garters. Look at the bottom of her skirt and notice that the left and right halves have what look like matching buckles. Although no fastening mechanism is evident, and the skirt doesn't have lose material to be taken up if you draw the front closed...
I can also understand why you didn't notice.
Posted by: David at Mon Apr 2 11:12:37 2018 (h8yX6)
8
That doesn't appear to be a catgirl--no extra ears.
Posted by: Rick C at Mon Apr 2 11:28:35 2018 (h8yX6)
The Right Side of History
We hear much about the importance of being on "the right side of History", however there seems to be some confusion on regarding this. Are we talking about right as in correct, or right as in starboard? If the latter, which way is history facing? If north or south is the answer, is the reference point magnetic, astronomical or axial?
Because of a lack of a reference point, I'm assuming the first definition is the...right one. This has its own problems as it is hard to determine which side history has taken, who history is and what his her or xer motivations are.
To resolve this conundrum, lets examine what side history has been on in the past since it was first determined that History was not a study of the past, but rather, a sentient being whose occupation is something like a Nevada boxing commissioner.
This astounding discovery seems to have been made in the late 1890s when Imperialist liberals like Cecil Rhodes and others like them such as the Fabian socialists, determined that History had a side. It had been moving for about the last 80 years in the direction of an astoundingly fast transition from agrarian to industrial societies and unfathomable advancements in human knowledge. It was then determined by the top minds of society that the right side of history was the side with racism, specifically the innate superiority of honkies to all other races. It was also on the side of empires as well as Darwinian evolution being applied to international relations. Remember, these were the progressives of their day, the central planning guys, they had a plan and history was inexorable in its movement towards progress. Progress was helpfully defined as whatever the Europeans were doing at the moment and this was embraced by the status conscious cliques throughout the world.
So the right side of history is the expansion of the state, racism and unbridled optimism.
Well....
The Fabians and their ilk had to make some tweaks after World War One shattered the European soul, took a generation of youth from the population and forced another generation to grow up without fathers.
So by the 1920s it was obvious that the right side of history was nihilism, despair and big government trying to direct everything. Of course the United States, which was almost never been on the right side of history until recently, was run by a subhuman group of untermenchen called "voters" who ignored the wisdom of the high society types and embraced the wrong side of history until a banking scandal and stock market collapse forced them to embrace the right side of history which obviously lay with tariffs and big government.
So by the 1930's hopelessness and nihilism were universally accepted as the right side of history....
Well, not really, because those aging Fabians and their ilk had determined that history was still on the side of central planning, expansive government and direct solutions those annoying problems that confront us all....
...and so those on the right side of history wisely and virtuously gave support to various strong central governments uninhibited by voter interference who could deal with those issues, most notably the U.S.S.R., which people on the right side of history cleverly recognized as the last best hope.
It's good that our betters figured that out, because it turned out that in the 20th century alone there were about 130 million people on the wrong side of history.
Actually, there were lots more, but the rest of the ignorant bastards got away, in part because the Berlin Wall fell down just as the people on the right side of history knew it would when they woke up the day after it happened.
By the 1990s it was obvious that the right side of history was populated with those who understood that China and Russia were becoming representative democracies and would always be our best buddies and life long pals. The extent to which this has been subsequently borne out by events is evidenced by the way history has provided those on is right side with the twittermob...which, in turn has been emulated and improved upon by China. Of course, Russia, that largest of all nations in land area, which stretches from St. Petersburg to...EastAsia, remains the nation we have always been at war with.
Today the right side of history is populated by those who wish to make the people safer by disarming them,
...those who take seriously the free flow of information and their responsibility to stifle it and, as always, those who acknowledge the utter sub-humanity and atavistic inferiority of honkies...well, the ones who aren't well connected or don't live in Tony zip codes.
Most of all it seems, those on the "right side of history" are those who don't give history a great deal of thought, or are secure enough in their status that they believe they'll be insulated from the ramifications of their policies and when those policies become history, they'll be the ones writing it.
Here's the thing..
Recorded history goes back in fits and starts 6 to 8 thousand years. Depending on where one draws the line, humanity has been settling an building for at least twice that and depending on how one defines civilization human history goes back hundreds of thousands of years.
The age we live in, the technology we possess, the prosperity that allows the intellectual decadence of our supposed betters, is a 200 year aberration in that time. A curious and atypical blip that resulted from the combining of several different philosophical and religious concepts to form the enlightenment. For all of human history except for a few short lived aberrations such as Kanazawa, slavery was near universal. The notion of universal human rights that ended slavery is a product of the cultural bank shot that was Christian beliefs intersecting with the enlightenment and the liberating power of the steam engineering the latter made possible. None of this is or was ordained or inevitable. If history is any guide, then the opposite is true. Indeed, barbarity (as we've seen in the Balkans, the Somme, Auchwitz, the middle east as well as the dark, ignored corners of Telford and Rothenam) stands forever ready to return from the darkness it was so recently consigned to.
All we have, this great technological edifice in which we reside, is made possible by a cultural and educational framework that is far more fragile than any of us want to believe.
The very knowledge we possess is increasingly not preserved even in such transitory mediums as parchment or paper but on electrons interacting with magnets. When the Gods of the Copybook Headings return, the resulting collapse could be quite far and quite hard indeed. Note that the societies that may currently be best positioned to survive such a disruption, are not the ones that value free expression, inquiry or liberty, but they are not stupid enough to forsake useful tools or disarm themselves.
The anomalous nature of all we hold dear and its utter uniqueness throughout history cannot be overstated. If history has picked a side, then everything that is good stands in defiance of it.
1
This needs to be seen more widely, let me put a bug in a few ears.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Mar 25 22:05:30 2018 (h8yX6)
2
If anyone doubts, just look at how quickly the prohibition on torture was tossed aside after 9/11 when we were facing an enemy about 1/1,000,000 as strong as the Nazis or the Commies. Or look at the complete freak out over the wrong person winning the 2016 Presidential election. The majority of our political establishment has embraced a conspiracy theory that makes birtherism look measured and sober.
Mike
Posted by: MBunge at Mon Mar 26 00:34:58 2018 (h8yX6)
3
MBunge, I refuse to be concerned with the "torture" of those who put themselves outside all laws. It was the insistence of treating terrorists as if they were lawful combatants entitled to protection by the Geneva Accords that was damaging to civilization, not any measures taken to destroy their barbarism.
Posted by: Rob Crawford at Mon Mar 26 07:00:50 2018 (h8yX6)
4
That Hogg kid really does seem to model his look after Goebbels.
Posted by: Biff at Mon Mar 26 07:04:47 2018 (h8yX6)
5
In interesting piece, but you’re missing rather large pieces of the whole idea: the guy who really put History on the map as some sort of separate entity was the German philosopher G.F.W. Hegel. (Not that there had not been eschatological views of history before, notably Christianity....) He wrote extensively and influentially on History (like a good German with a capital "G” - Geschichte). At any rate, his famous formulation was that History was Spirit (Geist) realizing itself in Time. He of the dialectic... Other key points was that History was also the vehicle for Freedom (the German concept Freiheit not the Latin (and through French, English) concept of liberty (libertas)
>
Engles and Marx (and many others) were much taken with Hegel’s dialectic and absorbed his notion of History progressing pretty inevitably to Freedom, they just had a very different notion of Freedom.
Most of those you cite, such as the social Darwinists and the imperialists, were much, if not always consciously, influenced by Hegelian thought, and the Marxists and the post-Marxian socialists (as opposed to the pre-Marxist socialists) such as the Fabians were quite consciously influenced by left Hegelianism as translated through Marx and Engles.
Posted by: CatoRenasci at Mon Mar 26 07:57:47 2018 (h8yX6)
6
History of philosophy isn't my bailiwick so I'll smile, nod and thank you for the edification.
I was focusing on the more politically active types and the popular notion that seems to have grown out of a misreading of Darwin that progress and advancement are the inevitable natural order. The late Victorian/Early Edwardian outlook by the then progressives seems to have been a major step forward in mainstreaming this, though of course, there were a few paralells to Jacobin thought as well.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon Mar 26 19:34:12 2018 (h8yX6)
Posted by: EccentricOrbit at Tue Mar 27 20:05:09 2018 (h8yX6)
12
Probably the best blog post I've read since the Death Of The Blogosphere
Posted by: AlanL at Wed Apr 4 16:36:24 2018 (h8yX6)
13
It occurs to me that the sided-ness of history might have been prefigured by the manifest-ness of destiny - both being cases of the people who like the way things seem to be going declaring that this is all good and right and inevitable, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is some kind of idiot.
Posted by: Edward at Sun Apr 8 19:54:48 2018 (h8yX6)
1
It's an interesting display of just how off the anime form is. The girls look horribly out of scale for the environment, I was first thinking "wow, they scaled it wrong, those girls are 4' tall, maximum" then people walk through the background video.. the height scale is actually correct, but the head size in proportion to the aneroxically thin bodies confuses you.
Posted by: David at Tue Mar 20 00:03:56 2018 (h8yX6)
2
The chests are okayish, but the legs are out of proportion. And the thighs are the really disproportionate part - longer than men's thighs and yet almost skinnier than the lower leg.
Movement and shading physics have really improved, though.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Tue Mar 20 15:49:02 2018 (h8yX6)
3
What is wrong with the first vid? The hair. Either make it a martial arts fight or fix the choreography, because hair whipping in the eyes is painful. And heavy. Hair is not a scarf.
But yes, impressive.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Tue Mar 20 15:53:23 2018 (h8yX6)
4
When I watch a video like this, it's a bit like that scene in The Matrix, except in in reverse. I don't actually see what the characters look like, I'm just watching layers and shaders interact and thinking about that.
Posted by: Ben at Wed Mar 21 12:40:11 2018 (h8yX6)
5
I think that worrying about what's wrong with it, in RL terms, is a sign that they're doing something right. The eye takes the animation seriously.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Wed Mar 21 21:30:24 2018 (h8yX6)
6
Opening of the first vid, they didn't quite match the lighting angle of the sun, and the characters were too evenly lit, but when they moved to the other settings with more diffuse lighting, that looked better. The selective reflections on the tiles in the second setting was a great detail. One other thing that needs a little fixing is that shadows were uniformly blurred, but shadows from the legs, closer to the ground, should be sharper.
Posted by: Mauser at Wed Mar 21 23:08:34 2018 (h8yX6)
7
Watching the second, I guess Augmented Reality stuff has improved to the point they don't need a black and white target card.
Posted by: Mauser at Wed Mar 21 23:12:45 2018 (h8yX6)
8
Looking at it again, what really makes the first hard to watch is the combination of attempting to make a "Shaky-cam" background shot with a camera that has image stabilization, which results in a lot of distortion in the background, but not in the figures.
Posted by: Mauser at Thu Mar 22 22:36:22 2018 (h8yX6)
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