@zdl@jens That's fair. It would be interesting to see different interpretations: as accurate as possible (using contemporary pigments and techniques, trying to match extant fragments), versus the most realistic or aesthetically pleasing result that we could achieve today.
Techbrodudes reinvent something that's been around for ages, only making it worse.
You know, public transit has been around for AGES before you got your grubby little rent-seeking mitts on it and tore it down, you festering horde of goblins!
You know how I get to the airport in Wuhan? I take the subway. ALL THE WAY THERE.
You know how I get to the three train stations in Wuhan? I take the subway. ALL THE WAY THERE for two of them. (For the third I have a half-block's walk because of some geographical issues.)
You know how I get to pretty much any concert venue? I TAKE THE SUBWAY AND/OR THE BUS. All the way there.
This is what public transit does for you: stops rent-seeking assholes from making your life shitty.
The list continues with public parks, temples, various markets (wet, dry, or super), shopping malls, university campuses, etc. etc. etc.
I haven't even owned a car in 20 years because it's a waste of money and time: public transit gets me where I need to be and, upon delivery of the subway, often faster than taking a car anyway.
And for those rare circumstances where I absolutely need a vehicle: the money I save from not owning one lets me hire at need for a net profit.
@jens I'm possibly not quite getting across at how DISJOINTED the writing felt to me. People just sort of appeared in one place, then another, then another, then back to an earlier place, then... And the hooks linking these sets together were wisp-thin.
Rather like my early-days D&D games when nobody involved had any clue how to actually tie things together and transitions were literally, "Well after you left the tavern at Seaville, you found yourself in Outer Cactus of the Plains of Fire".
So this little video is making the rounds in Chinese social media.
I'm calling it now: the Democrats have no hope in this election. They've alienated the demographic that they so desperately need the support of for calling them "anti-semitic" for...checks notes...opposing an open genocide.
The youth are not going to be voting Trump, but they're definitely not voting Biden either. Trump will win. Enjoy your next four years.
(Reposted because I forgot the actual video! I'm an idjit.)
I have a strange question, I'm sure, but why is it that #China putting restrictions on an #American tech company over security concerns is labelled 'economic coersion' but when multiple#Chinese companies were restricted over security concerns this was considered just hunky dory?
@ArneBab I don't see this kind of stuff being directed at, say, German companies. Hell, I didn't see this kind of stuff being directed at even RUSSIAN companies until Russia started actually invading other countries.
Sorry, I think race is a huge component. I've seen too much press bullshit in the form of double standards in the past 20 years to unsee this.
@zdl China is the only power worldwide that actually has a chance to break the hegemony of the USA.
And I did see this stuff directed at Russian (even German) companies (despite being allied), where they were inconvenient.
Remember Nord Stream 2?
The US even put up sanctions against companies indirectly involved in the construction.
The annoying thing is that now seeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine I fear they were right: Russia attacked once they no longer needed Ukraine for transit.
@deinol Oh, I'm positive they're not "actual Buddhists". Most westerners who claim to be Buddhist aren't actual Buddhists, see. This dudebro is just a rather extreme example of it. On the other extreme I saw someone claiming to be a Buddhist. Who uses Tarot cards. And is a Witch. And...
Now far be it that I, of all people, would denounce syncretic beliefs, but Holy Hell at least BE HONEST ABOUT IT!? Don't claim to follow a tradition if you're doing Chinese Restaurant Menu-style spirituality.
@deinol That particular site is choosing one from the anti-semitism column, one from the NLP column, one from the American "patriot" thug column, one from the "paranoid git" column, one from the ...
Isn't it amazing that the ten greatest love stories of, and I quote, "all time", happened to all fall within about a 200 year span and in the circle of European culture?
Go to a university campus in the literature department. Ask professors to name the 10 greatest love stories of all times. You'll be shocked at how little non-European representation there is.
And this is people who teach the subject!
I'm not a scholar by any means. I'm not even particularly interested in tales of romance. I'm pretty sure I'd outdo most of the literature profs I had inflicted on me in University, however, in this test.
@juergen_hubert And don't get me started on folklore. Any folklore most people cite is bowdlerized pabulum with the most obvious and common stories recycled and regurgitated while brilliant stories buried deep in original tellings are invisible. German folklore. Finnish folklore. Russian folklore. Persian folklore. Chinese folklore. Japanese folklore. Folklore from all over Africa (it is amazingly diverse!).
All whitewashed and bowdlerized when it isn't erased outright.
Oh, this is a hilarious trap. "Can China play a role in avoiding an all-out war in the Middle-East?"
Possible outcomes:
The Chinese government manages to play that role. Now China is blamed for everything that happens. "Because we know they can do this!"
The Chinese government doesn't play that role. Now China is blamed for everything that happens. "Because we know they can do this โฆ but chose not to!"
@radiofreearabia Yep. But if they get involved in this Israel/Hamas/Palestine/Iran thing, it will be as huge a stupid quagmire for them as it has been for the USA since the '50s.
Let's hope Xi is good enough at knife-fighting to keep that trap at bay.
@SaltyMonk I would be if I didn't think it heralded a never-ending stream of them.
Better would be a message saying "we have a new feature, click on this link to read about it" followed by an explicit "turn this on if you're interested".
It's not hard. Don't turn on a feature and give a "don't show again". Inform about the existence and give a "turn this on if you like it" button. THIS IS HOW CONSENT WORKS.
Phones, even when "turned off" are still active and can still do things. The fact that modern phones don't have removable batteries is so that the surveillance state (whether formal or capitalists) will always have an in on you.
@Miyagiyoda I think it's actually a different conspiracy. Apple (the first major one to make batteries effectively impossible to replace, IIRC) wants people to buy a new iPhone when their batteries fade, not merely a new battery.
It just happens that phones with irreplaceable batteries can't have their batteries removed, keeping them alive even when people think they're dead.
Encyclopaedia Metallumยน just put out an interesting statementยฒ on AI. Despite being in text, I have to make it an image because of character counts. One of the ironies of living in my SF future apparently.
The #Hotpot#GenerativeAI picture generator has an interesting feature: it seems to be flatly impossible to generate a picture with both #DonaldTrump and #VladimirPutin in which Trump is in any way subservient to or even equal to Putin.
This is the closest I've come, which is not very close at all. It still has Trump slightly more in the foreground than Putin, despite the prompt stating they should be side by side.
No amount of prompt engineering will put Trump in any way subservient. If I tell it to put Putin in the foreground, Trump is in the foreground, Putin is in the background. If I have Trump kneeling to Putin I'll at best get Trump kneeling to himself without Putin even being in the picture. (!) If I want a picture of Putin holding a dog leash connected to Donald Trump, Trump won't be in the picture and the dog leash goes to a dog ... even if "dog" is in the "don't draw" list.
What I found intriguing about this is that this is technology, available in the 1950s, that was superior to its competition (78 RPM records): more durable, better-sounding, more convenient storage ... and yet it was incredibly short-lived while the lameness of flat disks with small amounts of music taking up more space and wearing faster dominated the music world for so long.
This is the power of marketing over technology, sadly.