Suchian Musings And Ramblings About General Designs Involving Notable Estuaries

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  • I'd like to say a preemptive, "Shut up, you weren't there!" to all future scholars attempting to explain these years.
  • I would also like to say a preemptive "Stop that, you should feel ashamed of yourself!" to anybody attempting to make fiction set in these troubles.
  • I would additionally like to say a preemptive "Settle down, and don't pick so many fights!" to myself. 
  • Ali_Roz said:

    I would also like to say a preemptive "Stop that, you should feel ashamed of yourself!" to anybody attempting to make fiction set in these troubles.

    To be honest, given some of the things happening in this timeline, I'm not sure fiction can be any stranger.

    Aside from outright disobeying the laws of physics I guess.  But even then it might not be stranger.
  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    I'm kind of torn, honestly.

    On one hand, if handled tactfully, fiction about a major tragedy like this one could potentially be a great way to get future generations to understand the events and empathize with the people affected by them.

    On the other hand, it would be very easy to mishandle such a sensitive topic and end up coming off as making light of the tragedy instead.
  • Honestly, I'd argue that works of fiction that mishandle real-life tragedies are a dime a dozen (and there are some people, even those who've lived through it, that like such works), that if you (or anyone else) has an idea and means to make a good serious work out of it, just go ahead and try anyway.  The worst thing that can happen is you become forgotten in the sea of bad things.
  • edited 2021-08-30 02:12:10

    I'm kind of torn, honestly.


    On one hand, if handled tactfully, fiction about a major tragedy like this one could potentially be a great way to get future generations to understand the events and empathize with the people affected by them.

    On the other hand, it would be very easy to mishandle such a sensitive topic and end up coming off as making light of the tragedy instead.
    YMMV, of course, but my personal Risk-Reward-Analysis-Algorithm says no on this one.

    In my opinion, best case scenario, this becomes something we don't talk about, and which is not over-much thought about until the next pandemic happens in a century or so, and that future generation looks at us with quiet respect and wonder for our resilience and willingness to do whatever it took to survive and keep one another alive in such a time.

    Truth should be sufficient for understanding (inasmuch as one can understand such things, especially years later) and empathy; if fiction must be made, then at least I want to be able to say, "No.  I remember those times, and though I wasn't affected as many were, I have no wish to return".
  • edited 2021-09-03 23:58:25
    Unrelated:  

    "I haven't read any of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books in years, and I don't think I'm ever going to.  They are satire, and I have a lot of feelings about satire which are such that I would not enjoy them like I did when I was younger.  I would rather not tarnish good memories with bad associations."

    "I haven't read any of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books in years, and I don't think I'm ever going to.  They are satire.  I abhor satire as a rule.  What sort of person would I be if I made exceptions like that?".

    The first thing-in-quotations-which-I-hypothetically-communicate-to-people above makes people go, "Well, I guess that makes sense.", and the second makes people go, "Um, I'm not sure you're thinking straight about this.", but the second one is the one that feels right in my head and resolves into peace while the first one feels wrong in my head and resolves into sadness.  Is it wrong to want to "Do [thing] to avoid hypocrisy" over "Do [thing] for mental-health/feeling-okay/avoiding-sadness reasons"?
  • edited 2021-09-09 19:53:31
    Does anybody else make up vague dramatic-feeling dialogues without bothering to come up with the context for them? I find that it helps to use numbers instead of names for peak "secret society" atmosphere and avoid gendered pronouns for extra vagueness. 

    For example:

    Spoiler:
    "You don't even know?"

    "No.  I don't - and I don't want to.  I haven't talked to 684972 in years, so whatever crushing revelation you seek must have died with that one - at your hands, not mine."

    "Liar."

    "Oh, you... so characteristically quick to exonerate an old friend for the deaths of other old friends, and to see your own conscience clear.  What would 318146 think, to see the prized pupil off chasing the obvious suspect, the known enemy, the simplest solution?"

    "So it's sympathy you want now?   Presumption of innocence?!  684972 wasn't... right, in the head, in the end, but never lost the certitude.  One."

    "What are yo-"

    "Two."

    "Gratin!  The password to the Under-Archives is gratin!"


  • Word of the day, from Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, Ninth Edition (or Ninthy):  

    Gratin:  A brown crust formed on food that has been cooked with a topping of buttered crumbs or grated cheese.


  • My dreams exceed my real life
    Ali_Roz said:

    Word of the day, from Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, Ninth Edition (or Ninthy):  


    Gratin:  A brown crust formed on food that has been cooked with a topping of buttered crumbs or grated cheese.


    Oh so that's why that kind of potato are called "Au Gratin"!
  • I remember that day. 20 years ago.  I didn't really understand at the time.  What words ought to be said, are not mine to say.
  • edited 2021-09-17 17:54:05
    Spoiler:
    Sometimes I envy the LGBT community/noun-that-goes-here for their (for lack of a better word) hope.

    You get the prospect of a world that is more in line with your values and lifestyle than it was in the past, and which will be more in line with your values and lifestyle in the future than in the present.  You get the prospect of living to see one of your own attain the highest political office, and of voting for said person without worrying about setting public perception back decades.  You have the opportunity to get offended at harmful media portrayals and be backed up by your own because they feel the same, and also being hurt by such doesn't mean that you're failing at being the kind of person you're trying to be.

    I know I shouldn't care so much about the superficial and the societal stuff that I only experience through screens, and I know that there's so much more to the experience of being LGBT, including genuine wrongs that exist in the everyday experience, and I know that these prospects were only gained through sacrifice and lifetimes of effort, so I won't make any stupid claims here, but I had to get this off my chest.

  • -embarrassing request for response-
  • edited 2021-09-18 06:16:21
    a 2 AM response the thing in a spoiler, so I'll spoiler my response too:

    Spoiler:
    I think you made an interesting observation that relates to how/why different people respond differently to the political zeitgeist (I think this is a correct usage of this word).

    There are certainly some people who look at the way things are, see what they feel is a lack of hope compared to others, interpret this as hopelessness for themselves, and turn to various less-than-scrupulous ways of reacting/expressing themselves.  These range from harmless wonderposting on the internet to disruptive/harmful behaviors to potentially-dangerous delusional beliefs to involving oneself in...let's just say, very bad political movements.

    But fortunately, there are better ways forward.

    I'm not LGBTQ myself, so someone who knows more about this can please feel free to correct me, but my take on this sense of hope you're observing is that the hope you speak of is itself born from a lot of hardship, involving at the very least decades' worth of hard work and persistence and enduring through various real negative consequences, all of which are still occurring (both the good and the bad) to various extents.  And while it's nice to have a social support network, this social support network was formed because it was needed to find, or more accurately, to create, that hope, despite the dire circumstances they faced.

    But the "commutation"* of that is not necessarily the case -- you don't need to be part of some category that has faced or faces dire circumstances in order to have a social support group.  And while it's easier to find friends based on a common interest, it's possible to have friends for seemingly no reason at all.  Just here on HH, I've known you for a while and while I don't share your idiosyncracies, and while we don't talk with each other that much, I feel I at least know you well enough to accept you for who you are and sit by your side (albeit virtually and metaphorically), and besides, I'm aware that I also have my own idiosyncracies too.

    Hope isn't always publicized, and the point isn't publicity anyway -- the point is a personal feeling of hope.

    Well, that's just my thoughts at 2 AM.

    * Is that even a word?  i mean, the reversing of the order of things (in this case, concepts), like reversing the order of addends or factors in math.
  • Spoiler:
    I think that's very insightful, and has truth to it.

    However, I think we ought not continue this discussion until someone who is actually LGBTQ, so we don't end up blindly describing the elephant.

  • Thought:  Blights and Morning Glory would be absolutely terrifying if they happened to people the way they happen to plants.
  • Isn't morning glory a bunch of different species of flowers?
  • Still would be terrifying.
  • edited 2021-09-29 02:24:17
    I know blights are plant diseases, but I don't get how morning glory "happens" to plants...?

    Do you mean their unfurling in the morning?
  • edited 2021-10-01 02:14:08
    I mean how Morning Glory grows around other plants like a clinging ivy, and how it propagates through deep underground hidden seeds and stuff so you can't even reliably buy soil without worrying about it containing Morning Glory seeds.  It just shows up sometimes no matter how vigilant you are, and by the time you see it above ground it's got this whole underground root system so it's too late to ever truly be rid of it- it's the Organized Crime of plants.

    By "Morning Glory", I refer to the invasive bindweed which is often called by that name.
  • More ominous vague plot-talk from stories I'll never flesh out.
    Spoiler:

    "Now, see, I'm not dumb.  I take a bit to get to the point, but there is a point.  I'm not dumb."

    "Nobody said that you were."

    "You all thought it, you all think it.  Why else turn on them and talk to you."

    "Conscience, self-preservation instinct, or farsightedness are all reasons that come to mind here."

    "The first, I guess.  The next, heh.  Nope.  You'll kill me, or they will.  If I thought there was a way to not die, I'd be far from here.  The third, no."

    "I'll bet you a peach you'll be alive this time next year, and I'll bet you a whole barrel that you'll outlive me.  You don't know of any surviving defectors because we're competent at hiding people, and sincere about-alright, alright, you implied you had a 'point', so I'll allow you to meander your way to it, stop rolling your eyes."

    "Thank you.  Now, how to start.  Don't know what you call that one, but I tend to go for "the boss" in my thoughts-"

    "A rather mundane title, but-okay, okay, I'll quit interrupting you."

    "So, the boss likes these fish, you see.  The Galc fish.  Or, at least, likes to think on them.  How you can't find an old one, a sick one, a young one, a big or small one.  No one has.  Seems like they are all the same.  They eat all sorts of things, and spit out what won't break down.  Boss tried to find if there was a thing in this world they can't eat... there ain't.  Now, I think it's all a waste of time, but my friend asks how they choose which fish to chase, if it's all the same to them, and they're too dumb to have an urge to Not Eat Rocks, and then asks how they know when to cough up what's left in their guts."

    "Well, presumably even the simplest of minds have memory, and a periodic emptying of the stomach wouldn't require much brainpower."

    "That's what I thought, too, but The Boss gets this weird look like my pal said a real keen thing.  Nine weeks pass, and I miss my bud, but since I'm not dumb, I don't ask where that one went, I ask what's new with the Galc fish.  Boss says they don't have brains, not true ones, just guts.  They don't hold thoughts of the past, but not all stuff is the same to them, they like some food more.  They hold what they like in their guts, or they like what's in their guts, and what's in them is all that makes one an individual.  That's how they know what to spit out, what to chase, what to eat.  After a long time, with the right food, one can be made to hate what one loved, spit out what one once lived off of.  Then, the Boss says 'Thus Man, and Man's Mind'."

    "...Concerning."
  • Trivia time!

    In Shakespeare's play-that-it-is-better-luck-not-to-name, there is a line that goes "And you all know security / is mortal's chiefest enemy", which according to the notes in my old elementary school copy (anyone remember scholastic book fairs, and the magazine catalogs?  Those were awesome.) is supposed to have "security" in a meaning of "over-confidence", which made me realize that oh, that's how the word "insecurity" in a meaning of "a lack of confidence" is a thing, and according to old Ninthy, secure comes from two roots, "se" meaning "apart/away-from/not-with:at:having" and the common ancestor of "cure" and "care".

    Note the differences between segregation, aggregation, integration, and congregation.  Secede, accede, intercede, concede.  Sedition, addition, condition.

    It's awesome that the common ancestor of "cure" and "care" had the same paradoxical double-inverse meaning that "care" has, where it refers to not just that-which-makes-you-worry and that-worry, but also that-which-you-do-when-worries-happen-or-to-prevent-worries-happening and that-lack-of-worry-resulting-from-the-previous-which-might-lead-to-the-worries.  Careless vs. carefree vs careful vs to-care-for.

    It also makes the phrase "a false sense of security" make more sense.
  • (If any of you reading this are lurkers, hello!  Please join, it'd be neat to have some new posters here, and a lot of the best threads are members-only.  Also, while this thread is mostly pg-rated and Hayes-code-appropriate, pretty much anything I've talked about here that's not obviously drama is something I'm down to have a conversation about.  There is no such thing as on-topic or "so x-pages-ago" here.)

    RESURGAM.
  • I think leaves are a neat aesthetic motif (or whatever the right term is for that-thing-I'm-calling-an-Aesthetic-Motif).  They come in many different shapes, sizes, and colors, but are all easily identified as belonging to the same "leaf" category.

    The maple leaf can be simplified to be drawn in 25 lines or can be drawn with an almost-fractal near-infinite perimeter while still being instantly recognizable.

    Leaves can be shaped like spades, dragon scales, serrated blades, a peacock's tail, boats, shields, capes, hoods, feathers, wings, and all sorts of stuff.  I'm sure someone has tried a generic-fantasy fairy/medieval town/faction/city/culture/civilization whose "look" is "ask the artist to see how many things they can make out of leaves, or can make look like leaves, or can hide leaf patterns in".

    Unfortunately, "leaf" is a common word, and like many common words, it has other meanings, some of which I do not want in my search history.
  • ^^  I've been, metaphorically, both the crocodiles in that situation.
  • edited 2021-11-19 08:39:01
    I miss Klinotaxis and MetaFour and Toolsie and vtk and Alduin and Metafour and Calica and Oba-San/Naney/Pangur Ban and Vriska, and also Lunate even though that one didn't do very many posts so we hardly knew ye, and also Bee even though we agreed on approximately zero things ever.

    I miss others, but the above are the ones who I feel disappeared since the last Lackadaisy update and left no trace or reason.

    It feels strange that I'm still around; if you'd asked me years ago, I'd have thought myself to be more likely to get banned or leave due to being-offended/offending-someone/drama/causing-drama than any of the people who did end up with that being what transpired; and sometimes I wonder if I'd stopped doing some of the things-I-used-to-do-and-currently-try-not-to-do earlier, whether people would have had a better time here and some posters would still be posting.
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    A lot of those people are on Discord
  • ^ Hmm.  Potentialities, potentialities.
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    Discord is where all the cool kids are now
  • edited 2021-11-21 02:50:27
    In response to what Central Avenue said in page 324 of her thread, I will share my own thoughts (which are based in my own beliefs, which are of a faith that is often misunderstood and is hard to explain succinctly, enough so that I want to state outright that I am not very good at explaining such things and reading what I write is not equivalent to reading the things that I have read or living the life that I have lived, and that understanding of my religion best comes from authoritative, legitimate sources and not the random thoughts of one member with exceedingly poor communication skills  <I also will not in this post distinguish between objective and subjective, between my own interpretation and doctrine, and between revelation had by the prophets and supposition of others including myself---this is merely intended to be an equivalent "how I feel/think at this hour" post.>):

    We are the children of God.  Children, by inherent nature, can grow to become beings of the same order as their parents, like a larvae to a mature form.  This happens in cycles and plans that can be mysterious to the younger beings themselves.  Existence precedes and antecedes mortal life.


  • Well, that post is quite hard to follow up, so in the service of continued random-thought-writing here, have the following things-that-occured-to-me.

    We speak of things happening "organically", with a sense of something being unforced, genuine, natural, and not-entirely-due-to-intent-or-effort.  A closely related word would be "organize", and all its variants. Both senses are present in the idea of living organs, which are organic structures organized out of smaller parts, and which are themselves parts of a living thing, or organism. It seems that, at least in this way, the unspoken notion is that the natural state is one of order, that there is an inherent tendency to it.  Thinking of this, I realize that there is a strange sense of "artificiality", or at least of being-an-effect-of-some-cause, to the word/idea of "chaos".

    It is easier to come up with fictional settings which lack humans than it is to come up with fictional settings which lack trees.

    I use the text formatting features on this site too infrequently.
  • A counterpoint to this is the fact that people often think of a chaotic "state of nature" and other chaotic systems and things that look like (the result of) chaotic systems as "organic" because they "grew on their own" on an ad-hoc basis rather than being planned in a structured, intentioned manner.
  • I think that a large part of that difference is whether one believes that there is an inherent intention behind everything (a notion which has become less common among English-speakers over the last few hundred years).
  • I did the math, and calculated that the minimum wage should be six yards and five ounces.

    ...

    I never claimed to have done the math correctly.
  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    I laughed.
  • Hello and Welcome Back(TM) to the Unnamed Game Show For Unnamed Wraith Ghosts!
    I'm your Ghost Host with the Most, the Expert in Exposition and Center Text Position!
    ...
    This One!
    Hooray!
    Hooray!
    Hooray!
    Hooray!
    Hooray!
    Hooray!
    As you know, the Name of the Game is to guess Aliroz's opinions!
    The Grand Prize:  Your Long-Lost Name and Memories... A Treasure I Can Never Have(TM)!
    And Now, the Letter!  Let's see what the Subject is today!

    (Animaniacs!  It was an animated comedy show of the 1990s, which has a current reboot.  What is its opinions on it?  You have nine minutes.)
    Eight!
    Seven!
    Six!
    Five!
    Four!
    Three!
    Two!
    One!
    Go!
  • It has been observed that, for many things, in the absence of a cause to make such happen, Aliroz's opinions do not change.  Given the associations established with the 1990s and animation, the simplest supposition is that of a vague positive opinion.
    The one which is this one wishes to take the long shot again!  Not just ordinary Aliroz-approval, but like!  The one which is this one thinks it likes the show!
    Given that Animaniacs ended in 1998 and was not on basic cable, there is little chance of positive childhood memories of the subject, and given that musical comedy is among the least likely of all things to earn approval, this entity elects to guess disapproval.

  • Animaniacs was known for censor-dodging humor, and clips of it were easily available on YouTube during the mid 2000s (decade, not century or milennium).  Answer:  disapproval with an uncomfortable awareness of lost naÏvete, and a wistful longing for the times when such things could be enjoyed without adult awareness, like unto Youtube Poop.
    An animated comedy that ended in 1998? Surely it must see such a show as a model which the whole field ought to have followed.  Approval, for that exact reasoning.
    The one of this location makes the following guess:  Disapproval, for no adequately understood reason.  Such may, in fact, be the default opinion, if my suppositions are correct.
     Wow!  Such Well-Thought-Out Answers!  You're all a bunch of little scholars!  Let's see who, if anyone, wins, after these messages:
    BUY HATS. BUY HATS. BUY HATS.
    BUY HATS. BUY HATS. BUY HATS.
    BUY HATS. BUY HATS. BUY HATS.
    And We're Back(TM)!
    Let's see the Ending Letter to see what Today's Opinion Is!
    (Please let me end a sentence with something other than an exclamation point!)
    (Animaniacs ended in 1998.  If the whole field of television animated comedy had done the same, the only loss of note would have been Fetch!  With Ruff Ruffman, and that was more of a game show anyway, which, for some reason, probably associations with Jeopardy!, I seem to not disapprove of.  Therefore, by Kant's Categorical Imperative, I approve of Animaniacs.)
    Congratulations!  We have a winner!
    Good Gravy, that's groovy!  I win!  Oh wow!  I was a typewriter repairer named Tiffany!
    Ending theme.  Ending theme.  Ending theme.
  • So, years ago, I would sometimes watch Doctor Who, and it often seemed to me that the setups were better than the payoffs, that offhandedly-mentioned background bits were more interesting in my imagination than they were when they were explored in later episodes, and that (while each episode made sense with what came before and what came after) the long-term overarching story-lines were rather incoherent when looked at from the point of view of an entire season or multiple seasons.

    Anyways, the point is, that the idea of a place-with-fields-where-nobody-can-lie is such a cool idea that it became a staple of a lot of my fictional settings-and-stories-I-make-up-and-don't-flesh-out, and I'm honestly kind of annoyed that I didn't come up with it myself.  I never got to the point where that place was actually visited in the show, but, knowing it, it's probably some kind of "place with force fields where nobody can lie down" thing rather than a "mysterious tallgrass fields where it's impossible to speak untruthfully" thing.
  • Sometimes in my head those fields are such that "cannot lie or speak untruthfully" means that incorrect statements are impossible to say so you can figure all sorts of cool stuff out by testing what stuff you can and can't say [because truth in this case is a more literal and objective thing], and sometimes those fields are such that "cannot lie or speak untruthfully" means that you can't intentionally say deceitful things and then you suddenly realize that the lies you tell yourself are lies and you can no longer keep believing them (and then you usually end up revealing more than you intended to because part of deceiving is withholding important information and the whole point of secrets is withholding important information) [because truth in this sense is more of an emotional and spiritual thing].

    Either way, to prevent story-ruining or setting-ruining things which would inevitably result from those possibilities, I always have it so that you can't keep memories from the fields once you leave the fields, so you just remember entering and exiting and nothing else, and any written notes you make turn out to have been written in an indecipherable language.

    Mostly, it's a good place for confrontations between characters, and for dropping knowledge on the audience without giving it to the characters (which I admit makes it a lot like that one valley in Order Of The Stick).
  • Humor is often about (or made of) the unexpected, the unlikely, the inexplicable, the inappropriate (in the sense of "not polite or socially acceptable, or not fitting to the context"), the incorrect, and the misunderstood (in the sense of "communication failure").  On the one hand, this means that it can be said to be freeing and to be destructive to both order and established convention.  On the other hand, this means that it can be said to be restrictive, inherently normative, and even one of the things that define those conventions.
  • This does not only apply to social situations, but to many other things.  For example, humor about hearing-loss-in-the-elderly supports an idea that hearing loss is normal, inevitable, and one-of-those-things-nothing-can-be-done-about.  This makes the idea of something being "funny because it's true" very unsettling to me.
  • Not long until the new year.
  • Happy new year.
  • edited 2022-01-18 01:58:22
    Stellaris is, in many ways, an alright game, but its flaws cannot be ignored, and they are many.  The pacing is garbage, it makes computers sputter, and the depth/complexity is badly distributed.

    I mean, sure, I get that my spiritualist authoritarian pacifist Imperium doesn't like robots, and considering my opinions on such technologies, it checks out and feels right and tonally consistent.  But the event where you find the ruins of a long-extinct species who, in utter desperation, through means that can't be replicated in the game's technology, uploaded copies of their neural patterns in hope that someone later would be able to bring them back to life, is such that I feel like "the God-Empress decrees that, in this instance, machines can be given sentience so that we can give bodies, of a sort, to these long-lost souls", especially because the "download the neural patterns so we can maybe figure out how to bring them back" is listed as a Spiritualist Option.  How come there can't be an exception for a species from the deep past (perhaps contemporary to the great Precursors themselves) with the pattern-souls they themselves made and we could never ourselves make?  Or, alternately, how come there can't be a "oh, revelation!  We were wrong, and there can be souls in machines!" option to let you change it so as to give citizen rights to artificial intelligences?  As far as the "do not meddle in things" argument, the game has no problems with my same empire uplifting pre-sapients or manipulating pre-FTL civilizations to adopt our ethics, so it seems strange that there's a hard-coded rule that means that one of the game's most interesting setups can't get a payoff.

    They don't have room for that kind of nuance and depth, but there are dozens of options for battleships (even though the wars in Paradox games are never worth playing).
  • It just... doesn't have the magic, the sense of in-depth emergent story-making, that something like King of Dragon Pass has.
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