Brent

@bk4us.com

347 Followers 169 Following

Cold War Liberal. Peace if possible, truth at all costs.

In the background, a little boy and a little girl stand together in a corner, clutching each other as they cower in fear. In the foreground is the thing that frightens them: a cute bunny rabbit sniffing a quaint wooden bucket. The children are labeled "conservatives", while the rabbit is labeled "things that don't happen".
Screenshot from the adult animated show "Archer". Title character Archer stands before his co-workers in the breakroom, boldly claiming leadership by announcing "My plan is to crowdsource a plan". His co-workers look unimpressed.
The words "You wouldn't waterboard a computer" done in the style of Hollywood's famous anti-piracy campaign "You wouldn't steal a car"
Album cover for "Flood" by They Might Be Giants
Screenshot of SecUnit and Gurathin from "Murderbot"
Screenshot from Jurassic Park showing the location of Dr. Grant's dig site as "Badlands, near Snakewater, Montana". Sam Neill played Dr. Grant.
From Wikipedia: Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581 is a painting by Russian realist artist Ilya Repin made between 1883 and 1885. It depicts the grief-stricken Russian tsar Ivan the Terrible cradling his dying son, the Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich, shortly after Ivan the Terrible had dealt a fatal blow to his son's head in a fit of anger. The painting portrays the anguish and remorse on the face of the elder Ivan and the shock and heartbreak of the dying Tsarevich, who sheds a tear at the unexpected betrayal and shock of having been killed at his father's hands.
Trump Claims He Can Overrule Constitution With Executive Order Because Of Little-Known ‘No One Will Stop Me’ Loophole
Post by Sohrab Ahmari, saying: Diversity stress may be difficult to quantify. But it thought of as a negative externality or transaction cost that must be reckoned in any cost-benefit analysis about mass migration. My Diversity Stress—and Ours
Image of the paper jacket for the fourth edtion of Politics Among Nations by Hans Morgenthau. First published in 1949. Fourth edition published in 1967.
A painting of the moment Napoleon threw down his hat in front of Chancellor Metternich, and the Chancellor refused to pick it up. I don't know who did the painting.
Image from Duolingo. Duo the Owl looks like what I can only describe as a fiery angel, celebrates day 3,000 of my learning streak.
A mock-up of an Onion headline. Point / Counterpoint: Trump-stacked Supreme Court presents increasing threat to the rule of law vs. No, it doesn't. Inspired by the famous Onion Point / Counterpoint about the Iraq war.
Screenshot of a tweet from 2018: Think I probably missed out being an extremely successfuly monk, seeing as my two greatest talents are being very quiet and not having sex.
Three bookshelves, each seven feet tall and three feet wide, totally packed with books
Three part screenshot from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 1) A demon says 'No weapon forged can stop me!' 2) Buffy says 'That was then.' 3) Buffy says 'This is now' and lifts up a rocket launcher.
Screenshot of the profile of Rory Johnston, whose skeet I'm quoting. I've highlighted his job title: oil market researcher.
Screenshot of text from the FDA notice. "FDA has recommended that RAW FARM, LLC voluntarily remove their raw cheese products from the market, and the firm has declined."
It was barely two weeks ago, remember, that Donald Trump announced out of the blue that he was sending a US Navy hospital ship to Greenland to provide medical care for “sick” islanders. The Danish and Greenland governments were baffled by what he meant; the US government never even bothered to try to explain the presidential announcement; and, at the time, both US hospital ships were in dry dock undergoing repairs. Let’s check back on that, shall we? Today, there’s only one hospital ship at sea — and it recently transited the Panama Canal and is now off the west coast of Mexico, apparently heading toward a long-term repair and overhaul in Portland, Oregon. There’s been no further mention of Trump’s tweet. The entire episode just came and went, as baffling as ever.
Screenshot of my score from the "Just Noticeable Difference" color test. My score is 0.0033, which is quite good, though I'm not sure what it means.
Johnny Five from the movie "Short Circuit".
Screenshot from Community s03e06: Old man Cornelius Hawthorn dismisses a white woman's Swedish heritage. 'Swedish dogs! Your blood is tainted by generations of race mixing with Laplanders! You're basically FINNS.'
A GIF with a caption. It shows Fozzie Bear driving a car, content to be what the caption says: A bear in his natural habitat.
Book cover. The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part 1: Power and Struggle. By Gene Sharp.
Screenshot of the cancellation screen from Paramount+, asking why I'm canceling. I chose the option marked other, then wrote in the text box: Paramount is an ally of the Trump administration, and I'm not giving my money to that.
Screenshot of a paragraph fro the article: "The literal text of the show suggests that the natural result of Capitalism’s decay is a re-emergence of Fascism, and Earth is already locked in what we can now recognize as a familiar pattern of increasing technocratic censorship paired with a loss of political efficacy on the part of normal people when the series begins. There’s an election going on in the first episode and the conservative party wins on the basis of what we are to assume is reactionary rhetoric. He’s not the guy our protagonists were supporting, but the whole thing is treated with a shrug. It eventually leads to a civil war. We’re immediately thrust into a cynical world wracked with bureaucratic inertia and callow appeasement. Our heroes emerge as heroic because they choose to reject apathy, normalization and compliance. Watching Earth inexorably slip further into violent authoritarianism is gripping stuff, brilliantly played as background noise for the first two and a half seasons and just as novel as it was in 1994 even when expressed in the silliest possible terms (Earth Gov is really out there literally quoting Nineteen Eighty-Four on its propaganda posters, huh?). But I’m not sure how cognizant the show is of its own political subtext, or, y’know, text in general."
Screenshot of a paragraph by Annalee Newitz. Make no mistake: AI people, if they emerged in this current moment, would be oppressed. Companies trying to develop “artificial general intelligence” — or human-equivalent cognition — do not deign to call these potential creatures “people” or even “creatures.” Sometimes they’re called a “superintelligence,” reducing them to a very specific, economically valuable function. The idea is that we can make money on these future artificial people, if we imprison or abuse them correctly with software.
Screenshot from West Wing season 3 episode 8. President Bartlett's reaction upon learning about the existence of a Butterball Hotline for Thanksgiving cooking questions: "God, I'm sorry, but I Love my country!"
A screenshot of the Book of Matthew, Chapter 5, Verses 33 through 37: Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ But I say to you: Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.
He’s lost our foreign allies. The biggest story of this week was about how Patel broke an important personal pledge to the head of MI5, the British domestic intelligence agency and, arguably, the FBI’s closest partner in the entire world. MI5’s head had asked Patel personally to preserve an FBI liaison officer in London who was vital to certain advanced surveillance tools the Brits relied on for monitoring Chinese activities in the UK. In the face-to-face meeting, Patel agreed and promised — but then reneged when the White House wanted to cut the position as part of its misguided efforts to trim the FBI budget, “leaving MI5 officials incredulous.” It is almost impossible to capture how critical the intelligence relationship between the US and the UK has been over the last eighty years, as well as the larger English-speaking intel partnership known as “Five Eyes,” which includes the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The idea that you would break a promise to a Five Eyes leader would normally be an anathema to any competent US intelligence leader — and the episode also clearly demonstrates both inside and outside the bureau that Patel doesn’t have the political juice to run the FBI, if he can’t fight and win at the White House for a key position requested by our closest ally.
Alexander Skarsgård as Murderbot with David Dastmalchian as Gurathin.
A picture of myself at a local No Kings protest waving the Four Freedoms flag (four vertical red stripes on a white background)
A screenshot of a poorly written sentence. Various lines are highlighted to show the structure of the sentence. The sentence and the highlighting are described in the post.
Picture of Number Five, AKA Johnny Five, from the movie Short Circuit, released in 1986.
Tweet by Donald Trump on November 10, 2013: Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly—not skilled!
Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale. Tech company: At long last we have created the Torment Nexus from the classic sci-fi novel Don't Create the Torment Nexus
A picture of a tumblr post titled "Why I do toilet paper the wrong way". The post shows a comic in two frames. In the first frame a cat is playing with a roll of toilet paper hanging in the 'over' orientation and gradually unspooling the entire roll onto the floor. In the second frame, a cat is playing with a roll of toilet paper hanging in the 'under' orientation; in this case no unspooling occurs. Another tumblr user responds with "That's valid." Yet another responds "Okay I'll accept that, but you're on thing ice."
Screenshot from The Onion's "American Voices" about Trump's phone call with Zelensky that led to his first impeachment. It reads "Fine, but show me anywhere on that transcript where he says 'I hereby proclaim quid pro quo!'"
Cover of the book "Fascists" by Michael Mann
Screenshot of Google AI results for "fourier transform of my cat": A "Fourier transform" is a complex mathematical tool used to break down a signal into its constituent frequencies, essentially revealing the different "tones" within a signal, while "your cat" is a living feline creature; meaning if you had to choose between the two, your cat is the more tangible and relatable option as it's a real animal, not an abstract mathematical concept.
An image made in in the style of an executive order on the White House website. It reads, "Presidential Actions. Nothing is ever my fault and blaming me is illegal.
From the Wikipedia page "": 1950s desegregation. In 1948, President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which declared a policy of equal treatment and opportunity, but did not mention desegregation. He ordered: "It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale." Only the Air Force used the opportunity to integrate its units. The Army was especially resistant to the order, and only cooperated when a shortage of troops in the Korean War required that black soldiers serve alongside their white counterparts. Military units were officially desegregated after the Korean War in 1954. However, racial tensions continued to give rise to segregation and in fighting amongst various units, especially during the Vietnam War. The military inefficiencies caused by this internal conflict incentivized military leaders to seek to establish more harmonious racial relationships in the Army. One scholar argued that, in being forced to actively root out institutional racial tensions, "the military radically revised the moral contract governing relations between it and its members."
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
Cover from "Gun, With Occasional Music" by Jonathan Lethem
Cover from "The Shadow of the Torturer" by Gene Wolfe
Cover from volume one of "Politics of Nonviolent Action" by Gene Sharp
Cover from "Exhalation" by Ted Chiang
Cover for "Buddhism is Not What You Think" by Steven Hagen
Cover from "Bushido: The Soul of Japan" by Inazo Nitobe
Cover from "Leviathan Wakes", the first book in "The Expanse" series by James S.A. Corey
Cover for "The Sickness unto Death" by Søren Kierkegaard
Cover from "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson
Cover for "Introduction to the Theory of Computation" by Michael Sipser
Cover for "Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook" by Edward Luttwak
Cover from "1632" by Eric Flint.
Cover for "L'Etranger (The Stranger)" by Albert Camus
Cover from "The Sources of Social Power, Volume 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760" by Michael Mann
Cover for "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Cover for "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman