fatsam

fatsam, 5 days ago to random

A comment about global warming.

fatsam, 6 days ago to random

The "railway gauges are based on Roman chariots" passed through my feed twice recently. It's untrue.

https://garethdennis.medium.com/the-not-so-glamourous-origins-of-standard-track-gauge-2b5f1ae7e3bc

fatsam, 9 days ago to random

"If you are silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it." —Zora Neale Hurston

fatsam, 11 days ago to random

What's the earliest case in SF, that any of you can recall, where books and movies and physical media are explicitly obsolete?

fatsam, 11 days ago to random

I don't know who's reachable at this point. Not many, I suspect. Trump will tell Israel to go ahead and nuke Gaza.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/aid-starts-flowing-gaza-us-pier-israel-rafah-rcna152714

fatsam, 12 days ago to random

An expert is someone who has made most of the mistakes you can make, on someone else's dime.

fatsam, 12 days ago to random

fatsam, 13 days ago to random

This is lovely.

fatsam, 13 days ago to random

On the subject of ecosystem and civilization's collapse:

fatsam, 14 days ago to random

Neil Gaiman wrote: "Everything good that happened in my writing career happened because someone, normally another writer, helped me. Suggested me for something, put in a good word, and so on. The idea was always that you help others and they help others in their turn. It's not a win or lose game."

I'm not Gaiman, and probably neither are you (unless you are, in which case hi, Neil.)

But this is true for me and true for most of us.

fatsam, 15 days ago to random

Nice compliment over on FB.

fatsam, 16 days ago to random

Happy Mother's Day to all of you who did the work, of whatever gender.

This was my mother's last painting, in progress when she passed.

fatsam, 19 days ago to random

Reading "How the Irish Saved Civilization."

I read a lot of history as a young man. One of the problems I have at this age is that, having lived through "history," now, I'm aware how much written history is just a good storyteller at work, interpretation, explanations of times and places the author understood only from the outside in.

It's made it harder to read history. I'm too aware of the strings behind pulled, of conscious and unconscious agenda.

fatsam, 20 days ago to random

Shock and awe plan for fixing the U.S. ...

2024 - 2036: Only black women get to vote.

2036 - 2052: Black men and all women get the vote.

2052 - 2068: All men except white men get the vote.

2068: white men permitted to vote again.

Just a proposal. Would fix most of what's wrong with the U.S., in less than three generations.

atomicpoet, 21 days ago to random

When I was a kid, I thought, “I wish I was alive when Elvis and the Beatles were around.”

Now I hear kids say, “I wish I was alive when arcades were around, and there were real Outrun cabinets.”

Time is a funny thing because kids imagine these arcades were neon-drenched in pink and purple, with people casually wearing powergloves and leather jackets.

So it makes me wonder if my entire idea of the 50s and 60s is a caricature.

fatsam, 21 days ago to random

I moved to New York in 1994. One day I was walking to the subway on my way to work ... There'd been a chemical spill on the street. Crusty white stuff, just laying there in the road. I kicked at it a bit, wondering why I was the only person who was concerned with it. Salt? It wasn't salt. Maybe I shouldn't be kicking it? Maybe everyone knew it was solid white arsenic and that's why I was the only one near it?

fatsam, 25 days ago to random

This is Buddha babble:

"You can deal with your problems now, or later. Why not now?"

Because, in a long life, I have frequently found that some classes of problem go away if you out wait them.

Because, even if a problem does need to be dealt with, and soon, it's usually better to do it after a good night's sleep, than when you're tired and distracted.

fatsam, 25 days ago to random

Not mine, but:

The sport of choice for the urban poor is basketball.

For maintenance workers it's bowling.

For line workers it's football.

For supervisors it's baseball.

For middle management, tennis.

And for corporate executives it's golf.

The fact is, the higher you go in corporate structure, the smaller your balls become.

fatsam, 27 days ago to random

Always fascinating to me to run across European lefties who want to explain that the Democratic party isn't leftist. The English speakers come from, almost always, overwhelmingly white countries without birthright citizenship and bad records for handling immigrants.

fatsam, 27 days ago to random

Not many writers are what you could call famous. Even barely known actors from ephemeral tv shows get more traction.

Got stopped by a cop once leaving David Gerrold's place. (DUI checkpoint.)

He asked where I'd been, I said visiting my buddy. He seemed to expect more, I added, "David Gerrold."

He lit up. "The tribbles guy?"

fatsam, 27 days ago to random

fatsam, 28 days ago to random

fatsam, 28 days ago to random

I'd love a computer/brain interface, I think.

Open source hardware, open source software, V3. Anyone foolish enough to let Elon Musk stick gear in their head, deserves it.