deathmtn

Content warning: A super late politics hot take.

Well, I finally heard some of the debate despite thinking I'm not going to find out anything new beyond what I've already read and heard about it. I gave in and listened because I started to suspect people of panicking unnecessarily because people on the left tend to want to be fearful.

Well, Trump said some absolutely insane things like "we have the H20" and "immigrants are taking Black jobs" and completely ignored questions about his explicit vengeance promises.

Biden really was more messed up than I expected. I know people unfairly give Biden shit for talking slowly, but this was something else. (Incidentally, Ron Gilbert also speaks very slowly but is quite focused.) He couldn't keep his thoughts straight. Even this I wouldn't normally be too concerned about because I've interviewed people who sounded super confused like that and then later found out they were just flustered and could actually solve the problems in a low-pressure context. But I've seen Biden in at least two previous debates, and he was nothing like this.

There's several levels of tragedy here. One, Biden was so messed up that the press at large, who can only keep one thing in focus at a time, completely ignored how dangerous Trump is.

Two, for complicated reasons, we have a shitty press. Three, the voters who are persuadable at this point (and people who are persuadable at this point are largely idiots — by which I mean that they're literally worse at thinking than the average person) probably would have missed the debate. But the press vibes will be absorbed by these people.

So, is the left panicking unnecessarily? Well, I could dodge the question by saying yes because panic is never helpful. But to be less disingenuous, I do think the concern is justified.

Did it actually help to listen to parts of the debate? I guess as a cultural participant, I should know about major events like that that kick off other events, so there's that. But I don't think it changes anything I decide or do.

The guy and his friend are screaming and laughing about Minecraft upstairs. I kind of get what Minecraft is, but should I dig is so I know what's creating such intense reactions? I bet it won't change any of my actions. It probably won't be as uncomfortable as listening to that debate, though!

I really don't want to, but I think we have to seriously and as quantitatively (as I can, which is not very in the case of this question) what impact a Trump re-election will have on us.

My grandfather had his family flee two countries (North Korea and later South Korea) when he thought shit was going to get terrible. One time he called it correctly and once incorrectly, though, not horribly so.

I think he had many of the same considerations we do. He had five kids at the time he left North Korea, established with friends and school. Though back then, I think people didn't worry too much about kids' social development. Still, it was the only place the family had known.

Actually, now that I think about it, he had much stronger signals than I did, like his boss strongly hinting that the government was going to kill him. So, actually, I guess it's not apples-to-apples.

And to make things, even muddier, when he made everyone leave South Korea, in the '70s, there were strong indications that war would break out again and that the President Park's dictatorship wouldn't end. And his family was even more established. My dad was 100% not interested in relocating to America and struggling to order food at fast food places and stuff like that.

Enunciate when you annunciate!

Do you want to hear a guy reading names forever? I have the thing for you.

From The Science of Wrestling and the Art of Jiu-Jitsu:

A wrestler has practically unlimited vitality, for this strenuous sport does not burn up your energy as boxing or fighting does. Wrestlers who lead clean lives are at their best between 35 and 40 years of age, whereas most fighters are through at the age of 30 owing to the continual strain of the road work which burns up their vitality and tissues.

Bro science alive and well in 1923!

I came across Doro's guest track on Jomsviking. Which made me wander to her extensive list of duets.

And this is how I found out that she and Rob Halford recently covered Total Eclipse of the Heart (released by Nuclear Blast!) and that Rob Halford now looks like Terry Pratchett with leather gloves and laser fingers!

Some kinds of old age are black-hole-like in that everything kind of moves toward the same point and get squished into the same space.

AI trains on kids’ photos even when parents use strict privacy settings

Companies training ML models need to be cracked wide open and inspected GDPR-style. Of course, that would require a large inspection force. Would be nice if we just stopped all this wasteful effort so we could do other things!

Companies need to stop putting every web app on app.companyname.com subdomains. It makes it harder to get to your site via url bar autocomplete if it lives at the many, many app.whatever domains.

So, Biden can now order the assassination of Trump as long as he does it as "official business" and will be immune to prosecution. It's very hard to take the law seriously at this point!

Twenty-minute run. It was hot.

Chapter 4,000,000 of Things Don't Work the Way I Think They Will:

If you get multiple cats, and you name them after countries, you sort of create a geopolitical simulator. Situations like Russia stealing Ukraine’s food and Germany attacking Belgium will come up!

I spent a couple of hours removing a class from my game library and recreating something like it in the actual game. Was it worth it? I'm not sure.

I didn't advance the game toward playability. But since this project is supposed to be satisfying for me, I don't want it to be a work-like mess to deal with.

We did a hundred burpee challenge, and the guy did it. I had no idea if kids can do that. Holy crap! Child fitness!

I was only able to do 55 across five sets. My quads were all like, don’t be stupid here.