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Comments
By the way I feel like ever since I read about the cassowary's existence on Monday I've seen them everywhere (including the bit about the guy who got killed by his pet).
From here.
Brazil's National Museum did indeed get way less coverage. I feel like maybe this story is both close to home for a lot of news organizations, and Notre Dame itself is more of a landmark to the Western world (apparently it was even in an Assassin's Creed game recently) which is where most of us English/French speakers get our news.
It's also one of those stories that has no sides; everybody is sad that part of a historical landmark burned down taking along lots of great artefacts. To be a bit cynical, it makes certain segments of the Christian population feel important in the way they wish they were all the time too without the pushback they'd suffer normally. It's an all-round ratings grabber.
Plus it's soaking up all the air from the fact that significant parts of London are shut down due to climate protests, and somebody's gotta be happy about that.
When I was searching for this story the front page of the BBC informed me that two British actors died suddenly.
The fact that the CD I had on in the car was Francesco Gabbani's Magellano did nothing to damper that overt hipster feeling.
That is to say, I felt guilty about my environmental impact but not overall guilty.
But like, factchecking is hard and stuff.
Though the waste-management situation here
isn't greatis terrible anyways so I'm not completely off the hook.Is this because "X leaves the stove on" is already an existing meme that means something else (specifically, being interrupted by Dr. Rabbit singing "What What in the Butt")?
I have an extra steel straw I picked up off the ground at an event then cleaned up. I'd totally give it to you if I met you in person.
Despite having known you all these years I didn't know you were this resourceful.
I'll look into this steel straw business; it's probably a better to get one than to go through all of the paper straws I'll go through anyways.
I was under the impression that paper straws were okay to use, though.
While we're at it TIL paper straws are a thing.
Recently I've been daydreaming about getting a Raspberry Pi. Unlike all the other stuff I've been daydreaming about, I can actually afford this one. Then again, considering all the peripherals it's not that much cheaper compared to a phone.
Also, a lot of serious news websites are dedicating a lot of articles (possibly 4-10 articles a week) to Game of Thrones and that is really, really dumb.
I remember a time when anti-SJW wasn't that dumb, but something happened along the way. Either that or I began to notice it.
Also the world around me is overly hyped about Game of Thrones too. I'm tempted to get back to it (I stopped a few seasons ago) so as to not be out of the loop and socialize and stuff, but I forgot how to keep focused on one show for more than 15 minutes at a time.
Sometimes when a show goes on for more than 45 minutes I get this weird confused feeling because I'm more used to the 25 minute structure.
There's a looooooooooooooooooooot to say about this*. I feel like a lot of stuff happened after the election of a certain president that made everybody more polarized, and those new poles became the norm.
*
I mean, the movements on the right make me uncomfortable from what is essentially the start, but I'm not a fan of the... uh... boxing-in? of the while male archetype either. I feel like I see it at least 5 times on a given day if I'm reading a professional publication like Vox, and it makes me angry because you won't fix racism with more racism.
On the other hand, you have these intellectual freedom sorts who will rightfully begin a thing with people needing to accept differing viewpoints and then jump to "That's why a college professor should be allowed to espouse their transphobic views" or something to that effect. It's ridiculous, because there is a serious issue here (students maybe being oversensitive) that we'll essentially never resolve because the loudest voices harping on about things are a terrible extreme. It's not a deal with the devil I'd ever make.
I mean, if you're in a college class you're basically an impressionable and captive audience, so there's certainly a need for a consideration of their feelings. However, it's also important for people to develop a thick skin and actually know what's out there (as long as it's not presented as anything near objective fact or the right way to do things).
But like, that doesn't tweet well or whatever so let's just fight. We're at a point in the ideological war where there's no middle ground between the lead voices in either field*, so I feel like the rest of us should just like leave it to whoever and just live our lives doing other stuff because man that is a fraught, draining, pointless battleground.
*They both love to spout irresponsible garbage, that's for sure. Though to be fair, the ones on the ideological right do about 70% of the heavy lifting right now, but it feels like that's changing in a way I don't appreciate.
In a somewhat related topic, sometimes I get the feeling being good at internet arguments has unironically become an useful skill.
It depends on what kind of "politics environment" we're talking about.
I've had experience hanging out with:
* elections geeks, who, even if they may be partisans, are generally more inclined to think strategy, both for elections and for legislation
* issue activists, who are often less concerned with electoral/legislative strategy but much more concerned about pushing for results on issues and much more passion-based in their involvement
* opinionated partisans, who are sort of a variable mix between the above two categories
The kinds of conversations these people have can be very, very different, even if they're all on the same side and/or are otherwise allied.
As somebody who is mostly watching this from the sidelines (politics is nowhere near as big on college campuses here, by which I mean nobody at all cares aside from nerds like me) I'd suggest staying as far away as possible unless you find election geeks.
People who can view the situation systematically, rather than imbue every statement everybody makes with the fire of the every moment of repression in human history.
However, to find people who hold certain opinions, but are constantly willing to have a tiff over things and then be like, let's forget that and get froyo, is very, very rare.
It's like GMH and me, though we don't argue over things as fiery as politics. I feel the experience of debate itself is more important than what the exact sticking points are. It's invigorating, in a way. I guess if there's anything I wished I'd done as a teenager, it's be involved in debate clubs or something.
I guess it's easier to find this sort of friend in real life or in a forum than on like, social media, but it feels like the whole political sphere moved to there anyways (this feeling is is probably inaccurate).
I think it's good experience for lots of things, even getting into real life arguments (I mean not accounting for body language and such).
I look back and lament that I didn't participate in extracurricular activities, that said I also remember exams made it so that I wanted to have the least amount of university-related responsibilities as possible.
In other news, I just learned that legislation regarding tree is very serious business, that there's a thing as tree lawyers, that /r/LegalAdvice is full of stories about people cutting down their neighbor's trees and getting sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that /r/TreeLaw exists.
Concerning the other kind of academic politics, I heard the stories rather than witnessed it in person, so I can't honestly say much. From the stories it appears to be a mix of nepotism (both as "let's give the push to this talented student" and "let's give the push to my daughter-in-law"), personal quirks and single-issue wonks (mostly professors), and in the case of the students' council, also low-level desire for power.
Every time I hear some inspirational story about well-rounded students who still managed to graduate well enough, I unconsciously try to come up with reasons that's not possible because of the sheer amount of time I've dedicated to hitting the books.
In happy news, my favorite sort of news story (glamorous twenty something is a giant fraud who conned thousands of people*) finally came to an end. There's been a rush to make this into a TV show for Netflix and whatever, but I'd prefer a documentary.
*This Vanity Fair piece is everything.
In terms of college politics; I never personally had them, but I heard of a professor when I was an undergrad who would give out a test without notice and then spend the next class (about two hours straight) going over said test whilst singling out the person who had done the worst on it, reading out all their answers to the entire class.
They got around the rules by never mentioning them by name, but a few kids fled the classroom after the first thirty minutes or so, making it obvious who the target was.
Anyhow, debate tournament events (i.e. categories) only sometimes involve debating. At least when I was in high school several of the categories involved oratory performance of prepared pieces or simply speaking on randomly chosen topics, rather than actually engaging in argumentation.
And I mean, I guess it's good I didn't grow up to be a manipulative jerk I guess (not that all or most are but still).
So lately I've been considering cancelling my Netflix and subscribing to a news
papersite and the NYT seems like a really good option. However, I didn't know Vanity Fair is region locked.Unrelatedly the Wall Street Journal has a lot of articles about retiring. They also have articles like "TikTok Is the Latest Reason Teens Are Addicted to Phones" which sounds very "what the whippersnappers are up to rarrrwww" and implies that they only just found out TikTok is a thing last week or something.
But all that pales in comparison to the extremely serious business that is student politics.
Oh hey, it's Joon.
^^ Speaking of oratory, a friend took rhyming classes to help with oratory. My surprise when I learned rhyming classes exist was comparable to my surprise when he said it worked extremely well.
Every time I see this I think of the Ke$ha song first.
However, I didn't get that Ethan, so I'm glad I have another opportunity to grab him (and in a very cool set, I should add). I'm also a bit sad there's no new set with Liam or Mason, since I've been looking to get them too, but there's always the older sets that are still available within reason (for now, because prices on these can skyrocket after a while).
As for the positives, I'm glad we're getting so many new fashion pieces/torsos as well as some favourites I didn't get the first time around too. I'm glad we're getting not one, but two alternate blonde hair-pieces since I'm not a fan of Stephanie's default piece (one is even for her!). The new Heart Boxes are great too. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed building the only one I got from the first wave, and I plan to get more from that wave too.
Though I didn't exactly want my first year of like, serious collecting to start with a beach line, I love beach lines so I'm glad this extends from "hanging out" wear to "ocean rescue" gear. I'm also glad to see at least one new girl (Kacey) in a set that reminds me of one of my favorite older (now-defunct) LEGO themes.
There are a couple of sets that are yet to be revealed though; the new Friends theme art features Olivia in a weird bathing suit and Stephanie in The Coolest Lifeguard Outfit so I can't wait to see those.
I'm hoping we get a Stephanie's Lifeguard station with Mason, so they can be a cool Brother-Sister team.
Otherwise, every other line still uses normal minifigures.
I've been hitting the books quite hard lately. Here's a few gems.
conspire"agree" to borrow at their respective rates based on their own credit ratings, then borrow each other the amount at those same rates to gain either tax advantages or better interest rates. This again is completely legal, but the default risk is basically enormous.Edit: y'know this was probably needlessly inflammatory particularly since it basically has no context
You would be surprised at how much derision the mini-dolls face, actually. Somebody once claimed the Disney sets would sell better if they had mini-figures (ie if Jasmine looked like this all the time instead of this), conveniently forgetting that this same year, at least 3 Disney sets had ended up in the top 10 overall sets in terms of sales.
I've always wanted a series of Collectible Minidolls as they do for the minifigures, but that seems like a pipe-dream.