#✮ || messages / from the telegraph to the screen.

[lostwords-found]

Oh god. Okay. SO. The Protocol red string board is going places and I am chewing drywall.

Note: I've been working on this post for a few days and nothing in here involves episode 27--I don't talk about episodes before they're out for everyone, so no worries about patreon spoilers.

Quick recap of some suspicions about Protocolverse I've written about previously:

1. I think this universe runs on a kind of balance of good & bad luck (or suffering and happiness), and that it's possible--under certain circumstances--to pawn the bad stuff off on other people and keep the good that arises to balance it out. I suspect a big piece of Protocol's overarching plot is going to be about the different ways people go about trying to come out ahead in that bargain.

2. I think some alchemists figured out how to attach bad luck and/or other similarly abstract ills into physical form.

3. I think they were trying to use this to cast out bad luck to other worlds (including that of Archives) and get good luck back. I think this is how the Fears got to Archives in the first place.

4. I think the books and coin in the tomb from MAG 23 got there this way, probably with the involvement of Protocolverse Albertus Magnus. The year on the coin -- 1279 -- is the year before Albertus Magnus died.

We'll come back to that stuff in a bit.

There's an apparently minor detail that was nagging at me recently: in TMAGP 22 Hans Berger specifically mentions having switched to silver wires in his experiments, and this change enabling his breakthroughs. It's through these silver wires, implanted directly into Herr Schmidt's brain, that he later receives the desperate telegraph signals that appear to be from a previously unheard part of Schmidt's brain.

By itself, that wouldn't ping any alarms. Silver wires are in fact what Berger used in real life; silver's highly conductive so if you're trying to read electrical impulses from the brain, probably a good choice of material. But the writing is very deliberate about mentioning them, and coming only three episodes after another historical letter about a scientist also working with silver -- Newton's tree in TMAGP 19 was a fantastical variant of a Tree of Diana, dendritic silver -- Berger's wires start feeling like maybe they're not just there for accuracy.

If, as it appears from Newton's work, consuming silver in certain forms can cause a new kind of consciousness to arise--and also, uh, turn you into a tree--what might implanting silver wires in a human brain do? Is the silver contacting or awakening something that was already there, or is it putting something there? Was that desperate OUT OUT OUT message really from half of Herr Schmidt's mind--or from something in the wire itself that was trying to get out?

That would be weird though. I mean--what, Protocolverse silver's inherently evil or something? But then I got back to thinking about alchemists trying to transmute things into precious metals. Gold's the one we mostly think of, but silver was also of interest. Which in real life is where you got stuff like the tree of Diana--alchemists thought that was a precursor to the philosopher's stone.

So... then I start thinking, if I was right in my other post that alchemists were figuring out how to put evil / misfortune / suffering into a physical form that could be used to transfer it somewhere else, what if silver was involved in that? What if they were either turning misfortune into silver, or trapping it in silver that already existed?

What if they did that, meaning to send it away, and some of that silver made its way into use?

Then I started looking some stuff up.

Did you know silver used to be mined in the Black Forest, in Germany? One mine there had a name meaning "Blessing of God." That mine dates back to the 1200s--Albertus Magnus's lifetime.

Did you know that starting in the 1600s, the G strings on high quality violins were typically wrapped in silver wire?

Do you know why movies are called the silver screen? In the 1920s, literal silver was used to make cinema screens. This fell out of favor as other cheaper designs were worked out, BUT in the 2000s silver has come back into use a bit because it works well for 3D movies. I would not be surprised at all if the screen that Tom went to see Voyeur on had silver in it.

Did you know that in the early 90s there was a specific plant in the UK that manufactured CDs covered with a layer of silver? This later turned out to cause some problems as the silver reacted with sulfur (oh hai, another alchemically significant substance!) and slowly degraded the discs. In real life these CDs were manufactured up through 1993. Per TMAGP 10, Mr Bonzo made his debut in '96 (the interview is from 2021 and is the 25th anniversary of Mr Bonzo's first appearance). The two times Mr Bonzo has appeared in person he's been summoned by playing a CD of his theme song. I wonder where and when those CDs were manufactured...

Did you notice the caterer Lady Mowbray hired in TMAGP 15 mentions that his company did silver service events? Betcha that particular feast was served on literal silver platters.

...I'm starting to think it's a really good thing ink5oul didn't end up tattooing Gwen with that silver spoon.

Okay. This all seems like there's maybe a theme here, but let's take a step back. Some materials have just been used for a lot of things throughout history; it could be coincidence. IF the above is actually on the mark--IF these were all intentional majorly-plot-relevant inclusions of Things Wot Involve Silver--where else would we expect to see this cropping up in the story? Because the topic of silver has barely been raised directly at all; I'm extrapolating wildly here, mostly on the basis of a couple episodes.

Well, here's a thought: silver was used in everyday currency for a long, long time. If there was a bunch of Evil Silver floating around surely someone would have stuck it into some money at some point. "Ill fortune" in the most literal possible sense, or whole new meaning to the phrase "bad penny" -- there are various bad jokes there that more or less write themselves. Though whoever was doing this would have had to to mark the bad money somehow so that they could avoid it...

Hey, um, remember how the OIAR's offices are in the building that housed the Royal Mint for like 150 years?

Actually, while we're on that subject, here's a funny little tidbit: Before it moved to Royal Mint Court, the Royal Mint was in the Tower of London for several centuries--its first home after being centralized. Wanna guess what year the Royal Mint was established in the Tower of London? Go on. Guess.

1279.

The same. Fucking. Year. As was on that coin waaaaaay back in MAG 23. Which was a thing I had noticed a while back when looking at the Germany eps, but I hadn't been considering a "what if some metals can be Bad" angle at that point and had just written it off as an odd coincidence.

Which I mean, it's probably still just a weird coincidence, I'm building this entire elaborate framework out of assumptions on top of assumptions on top of -- hang the fuck on, let me look something up real quick, I've gotta be misremembering--

I'm not misremembering! Isaac Newton was the Master of the Royal Mint for the last 30 years of his life.

Cool. Okay. So that's--hm. I think I'm genuinely starting to convince myself none of this is a coincidence.

Then I start poking through Wikipedia, and you wanna know some other interesting things? One, Newton himself apparently saw his work in economics as a continuation of his alchemical work. And two, during his tenure at the Royal Mint, he put limits on how much gold people were allowed to exchange for silver, and this led to a silver shortage. Because apparently, when other countries imported goods to them, the British paid for those goods in silver coins. When they exported goods to other countries, though?

They would only take payment in gold.

And there it is--there's the exact outsourcing scheme I was looking for. Stick all your suffering and pain and misfortune into your money, use that money to pay other countries, and get only the good stuff back. That... sounds really believable for the British Empire, honestly.

So I really think I might have some decent guesses on the historical stuff at play here. That only goes just so far though, because these days, silver doesn't really get used in coinage much.

Know where it does get used? Circuits. Electronics.

Computers.

If I'm right, whatever machinery the Mint used to store the intangible evils of the world in physical coinage for exportation, I would guess the OIAR is now using to instill all of those evils into FR3-D1 instead. One all-containing artifact of misfortune.

What the endgame is there, what the government gets out of it, I'm still not 100% sure--but I can't help thinking about Jonah's line in MAG 160 that Jon is not the Archivist but the Archive. That he is the record of fear, the physical embodiment of it.

There's people wanting to outsource absolutely fucking everything to AI these days, I guess.

SO THAT'S BEEN MY WEEK this is what my brain does when I have to drive all the way across the US alone, apparently. How are you all?

[scifigeneration]

From science fiction to telemedicine: the surprising 150-year history of long-range medical treatment

by Debbie Passey, Digital Health Research Fellow at The University of Melbourne

In 1874, a surgeon in South Australia telegraphed wound care instructions for a patient 2,000 kilometres away. A few years later, in 1879, a letter in The Lancet medical journal suggested physicians use the telephone to cut down on unnecessary patient visits.

As the telephone and telegraph spread, the idea of telemedicine – literally “healing at a distance” – inspired science fiction writers to conjure up new ways of treating patients across great distances.

Real-world technology has developed in tandem with scifi speculation ever since. Today, certain kinds of telemedicine have become commonplace, while other futuristic tools are in the offing.

The radio doctor and the teledactyl

In his 1909 short story The Machine Stops, English novelist E.M. Forster described a telemedicine apparatus that, when telegraphed, descends from the ceiling to care for patients in the comfort of their home. His story is also the earliest description of instant messaging and a kind of internet – both important for real-life telemedicine.

In 1924, Radio News magazine printed a cover story showing the future “Radio Doctor”. The cover depicts a physician examining a patient through a screen. Although the magazine story itself was a bizarre fiction that had little to do with a radio doctor, the imagery is evocative.

In a 1925 cover story for Science and Invention, US writer Hugo Gernsback describes a device called “The Teledactyl” (from tele, meaning far, and dactyl, meaning finger). The device uses radio transmitters and television screens to allow a doctor to interact with a patient. The added twist – the physician touches the patient using a remotely controlled mechanical hand set up in the patient’s home.

Gernsback was a futurist and pioneer in radio and electrical engineering. Nicknamed the “Father of Science Fiction”, Gernsback used fictional stories to educate readers on science and technology, and often included extensive scientific details in his writings. He helped establish science fiction as a literary genre, and the annual Hugo Awards are named after him.

From seafarers to spacefarers

The radio was important for early telemedicine. In the 1920s, physicians across the globe started using the radio to evaluate, diagnose, treat, and provide medical advice for sick or wounded seafarers and passengers. The radio is still used to provide medical consultation to ships at sea.

In 1955, Gernsback returned to the idea of distance medicine with “The Teledoctor”. This imaginary device uses the telephone and a closed-circuit television with mechanical arms controlled by the physician to provide remote patient care. Gernsback said the doctor of the future ��will be able to do almost anything through teledoctoring that he can do in person”.

In 1959, psychiatrists in Nebraska started using two-way closed-circuit televisions to conduct psychiatric consultations between two locations. This is considered one of the first examples of modern-day telemedicine. Early telemedicine networks were expensive to develop and maintain, which limited broader use.

In the 1960s, NASA began efforts to integrate telemedicine into every human spaceflight program. By 1971, a telemedicine system was ready for trial on Earth – in the Space Technology Applied to Rural Papago Advanced Healthcare (STARPAHC) program. Using a two-way television and radio connection and remote telemetry, the program connected Tohono Oʼodham people (then known as Papago) with nurses and physicians hundreds of miles away.

The internet and a pandemic

It wasn’t until 1970 that the word telemedicine was officially coined by US doctor Thomas Bird. Bird and his colleagues set up an audiovisual circuit between the Massachusetts General Hospital and Logan Airport to provide medical consultations to airport employees.

From the 1970s onward, telemedicine started gaining more traction. The internet, officially born in 1983, brought new ways to connect patients and physicians.

Satellites could connect physicians and patients across greater distances without the need for two-way closed-circuit televisions. The cost to develop and maintain a telemedicine network decreased in the 1980s, opening the door to wider adoption.

In his 1999 science fiction novel Starfish, Canadian writer Peter Watts describes a device called the “Medical Mantis”. This device allows a physician to remotely examine and perform procedures on patients deep beneath the ocean’s surface. In the early 2000s, NASA’s Extreme Environment Mission Operations started testing teleoperated surgical robots in undersea environments.

The evolution of telemedicine has kept pace with advances in information and communication technology. Yet, throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, telemedicine remained little used.

It took the global COVID pandemic to make telemedicine an integral part of modern healthcare. Most of this is consultations via video call – not so far away from what Gernsback envisioned a century, though so far without the robotic hands.

What’s next? One likely factor pushing real-world telemedicine to match the dreams of science fiction will be developments in human spaceflight.

As humans progress in space exploration, the future of telemedicine may look more like science fiction. Earth-based monitoring of astronauts’ health will require technological breakthroughs to keep pace with them as they travel deeper into space.

[night-heron-writes]

The World of Spy x Family: Spy Radios

We don’t see a ton of Twilight/WISE’s spy gear in the show, and even less of the SSS’s counterintelligence gear, but what we do see blows me away. The attention to detail in this anime and manga is impressive. I’ve been able to research and clearly identify everything except the WISE HQ set of screens/radios (mostly bc we only get a zoomed out perspective of that), and it all matches up to what would have been used during the Cold War and in West and East Germany.

Let’s start with Twilight’s own radio kit. In the manga it looks like this:

And in the anime it’s practically identical, with only a few knobs and things moved around:

Now, it’s not exactly identical to it’s real-world counterpart, but it’s astoundingly close. The Spy x Family version just looks a little sleeker.

This is an ESK-52/Type 41 Amateur Radio Set, produced by the West German company Telefunken for the West German Intelligence Service, or the Bundesnachrictdienst. It was first produced in 1952,and was primarily used during the Cold War.

The Type 41 is a type of stay-behind radio set, used by spies who stayed behind in other countries to gather intelligence. For secrecy reasons, spy radios were often marketed as “amateur radio sets” to make them seem less suspicious. The Type 41 comes inside a suitcase, and is fully capable of both receiving and transmitting morse code messages over radio frequencies. It came equipped with headphones that look very similar to the ones portrayed in Spy x Family:

And now for the SSS. In Episode/Chapter 1, when Anya accidentally sends the message with her location and a challenge. In the manga, we can barely see it because of all the speech bubbles, but here’s what we can see:

The anime gives us a much clearer shot:

This one looks pretty close to its real-world counterpart, the R-353. You can see that the anime/manga simplified things a little bit, but overall they look very similar:

The R-353 was a Soviet-manufactured spy radio set, also used by other Warsaw Pact countries, such as East Germany. In East Germany, it was used by the government, and by the Stasi in particular.

The R-353 was one of the most sophisticated Cold War Soviet spy radios, with the capability to receive and send morse code signals over radio frequencies, which  could be sent manually, semi-automatically with the numerical dial, or completely automatically by magnetic tape.

Now, on to the tricky part: WISE HQ. Here’s what it looks like in the manga:

and in the anime:

As of yet, I’ve been unable to concretely identify anything in these pictures, although I strongly suspect the the cabinets with rotors are Bombe Machines, which look like this:

Bombe machines were used to brute-force the Enigma machine during WW2, and i’m not sure how WISE would have got a hold of any, since every single Bombe machine the British had was destroyed after the war to maintain secrecy. Perhaps WISE got a hold of a Polish Bombe machine and are trying to break Ostania’s ciphers?

Trying to play I Spy with the radios and other equipment in these panels/screencaps of WISE HQ has been tricky. The shots are all zoomed out, making it nearly impossible to see any identifiers. My best guess is a combination of radio transceivers (transmitter/receiver combination) and Telex machines (teletypewriters - think telegraph but combined with a typewriter and outputting ASCII characters rather than Morse code).

Without more detailed and close-up shots of the equipment in WISE HQ, I can’t make any guesses as to the specifics of the machines.

In conclusion, I continue to be blown away by the attention to detail in this series, in both the anime and manga. Even things we see maybe once or twice are very well thought-out, and there are so many layers to dig through, from the geography all the way to the spy gadgets that have maybe ten seconds of screentime or one manga panel.

Edit: all info on the historical spy gear i talked about can be found at cryptomuseum.com. I highly recommend checking it out if you’re interested, they have done a very thorough job of documenting things.

[ryanhamiltonwalsh]

I saw Megalopolis last night.

One of my favorite things is when an artist banks on earlier successes and cashes in that cred to take a huge creative swing, so in that sense, I love that this exists. It is also one of the biggest, most expensive messes I've ever seen on screen with much of the cast tonally delivering different varieties of "over the top" performances than all of the other characters, both main and secondary. Things that don't need explaining are intensely over-explained—there is literally a montage of spinning newspaper headlines coming at you—and things that desperately need explaining are not explained whatsoever. But the film is so excessive, so saturated with information, that you are discouraged from doing any reading between the lines or inferring things on your own because the message Francis Ford Coppola telegraphs to you from the jump is: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW AND *CAN* KNOW ABOUT THIS MOVIE IS WHAT I SHOW YOU ON SCREEN. In that way, making a guess about why certain characters have superpowers, for instance, distinctly feels like you're writing Megalopolis fan fiction. There is nothing to suggest you can figure any of this out on your own, or should try to.

For 2/3rds of the movie, only a select amount of the theater audience was laughing at all of the patent absurdity they were being show with a straight face, but at a certain point, the tide shifted and everyone was of this mind. You could literally see people in the crowd often throwing up their hands in a "wait...what?" motion repeatedly. Voiceover narration comes and goes, sometimes paired with even more exposition literally written in stone. Sometimes it looks genuinely gorgeous, other times like a film student just bought a green screen.

I love the movie that Aubrey Plaza and Shia LaBeouf thought they were in; their performances are beautifully absurd and unhinged. Adam Driver, to me, only seemed truly comfortable during the sequence where he gets absolutely twisted on various substances and chants self-talk mantras like "When you jump into the unknown, you prove you are free" which is what FFC is doing here, and my admiration for that act is boundless. He could have ended his career with a small period piece all shot in one cabin and it would be lauded and celebrated but he would never forgive himself for not trying to make this. I truly gotta salute this legend for this move. But in the end, there's this enormous irony in the room at all times which is, basically:

This is a movie about literal 'world building' that is very bad at worldbuilding.

You couldn't make up a more dramatic fatal flaw for a film to have, right? Kind of beautiful. Kind of tragic. Forget about it, Francis, it's Megalopolis.

p.s. There is a 2 sec shot of the fate of Dustin Hoffman's character that is the funniest thing I've ever seen. One companion said of it, "It felt like a Kickstarter stretch goal. If we hit this amount, we'll film and show you the fate of Nush Berman."

p.s.s there is a scene where someone connects a USB drive to a computer and does so correctly on the first try. It's the most unrealistic thing that happens in a movie where a gun shot to head heals fully between acts.

[jackhkeynes]

Tachygraph

A tachygraph (Merch /ˌta.kɪˈgɾaf/, also informally a tachy or tacky /ˈta.kəi/) is a device with a keyboard for typing text onto paper [i.e. a typewriter], or more recently directly onto a slate [computer screen].

Etymology

The word "tachygraph" originates in the mid-nineteenth century as a brand name. It is derived from Ancient Greek τᾰχῠ́ς • (takhús) "quick, fast" and γρᾰ́φω • (gráphō) "draw, write".

History

Early tachygraphs in the 1830s and 40s were extremely cumbersome, with most models only capable of setting type at a fraction of the speed of practised handwriting. The Armanburg Tachygraph (Tachygrafia Armangrod), which was commercially available in Poland from 1842, was so awkward to use that it was lampooned in the bit-sheets [cheap newspapers] as the Bradygrafia (literally the “slow-writer”).

Since very early on, attempts have been made to connect tachygraphs to the steeplemesh [telegraph network], so that one could type a message onto paper and simultaneously transmit a copy of the message to someone else (ideally, automating a tachygraph to type the message out also on the receiving end).

The first tachygraph specifically able to send messages on the steeplemesh was the Vilmanas Teleclavia, designed in Lithow [Lithuania] by Tomas Vilmanas in 1859. Its first message (the first line from Ovid's Heroines, reproduced below) was sent on Michaelmas of that year to his friend Margreta Legaite in Tvaniste.

· A B C D E F G · HAEC TUA PENELOPE LENTO TIBI MITTIT ULISSE · a b c d e f g. This your Penelope sends to you, long-delayed Ulysses.

Historical films have made much of the fact that this message was sent less than a month after the 1859 Auroric Anomaly [the Carrington Event], but there is no evidence Vilmanas considered its effects (though he must have been aware of the stories of messages along unpowered steeplepost wires).

In the late nineteenth century, the Faxim brand of tachygraph was sold across Borland.

[laminy]

I saw Unicorns today at TIFF! I don’t want to spoil anything (unless you message and ask, then I’ll tell you whatever you want), so this won’t be too in depth in terms of the actual story beats. I’ll put it behind a cut anyway just in terms of length.

The basic premise is that Luke (Ben’s character), a single father who works as a mechanic, ends up at an underground drag performance, and doesn’t realize that the performer, Aysha, is a drag queen. He thinks she’s a female dancer, and finds himself attracted to her. Then Aysha hires him to be her driver.

In general, I would say that I liked it, and am glad I saw it, but I didn’t love it. It is probably as tropey and cliche as you might imagine, based on the premise, which doesn’t necessarily make it bad, it just means that most of what happened probably isn’t much of a surprise (though a couple moments are). The main characters themselves are bordering-ish on stereotype. Ben’s in particular made me wince a few times. But obviously, I don’t think there are a lot of interracial gay romances out there, so this is successful in its differences (though I personally didn’t really buy into the chemistry between the leads and thought the hottest scene was a brief moment Ben had with another male character early on, though other reviews I’ve seen disagree and loved their chemistry).

It did get a few really big laughs from the audience, but I also heard someone say, as we were leaving, that the best part of it was the music, so that might not really be a great sign?

Not being part of either community represented in the film, I can’t speak to how successful that representation is. I definitely have my own thoughts about it, as a viewer, but they would be verging too close into spoiler territory. The story is mostly through Ben’s eyes, not Aysha’s, and it largely follows him, but James Krishna Floyd, who wrote and co-directed is Indian so I trust that at least parts of Aysha’s story ring true.

In terms of Ben (which is the reason I went) and his career, I think it is an interesting trajectory and does the make the future of his career more exciting. Even if something might not be great, at least he’s not afraid of taking chances. I think based on looks and body type (no judgment) producers are always going to want to stick him in a box of like, romantic leading man or blockbuster action. And I suspect he also has bills to pay so will continue to do those (no shame, I personally loved 6 Underground even if no one else did). But this at least says to me he’s not afraid of looking absolutely pathetic and unsexy on screen. His giant green eyes (a character described them as ~mysterious~ which is not at all accurate because I feel like his eyes constantly telegraph everything going on) spend the entire movie on the verge of tears, honestly the personification of 🥺🥺

He’s obviously doing films he enjoys and scripts that speak to him because this is going to go nowhere at the box office and probably fly totally under the radar.

In terms of trigger warnings, there are a couple I could give that would be spoilers but mainly I do not recommend this film if you’re affected by flashing or strobe lights, which are basically all of Aysha’s performance scenes.

[mariacallous]

(JTA) — Daniel Lombroso sees “Nina & Irena,” his documentary short film about his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, as a coda to his 2020 documentary “White Noise,” in which he followed leaders in the “alt-right” movement.

For the four years during the making of “White Noise,” he was surrounded by neo-Nazis, who were on the cusp of a resurgence around the 2016 presidential race. “I never thought about my own connection to the material in any detail, and then I realized the reason I cared so much about this story before anyone else in the country was because of my grandparents,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It was the stories that I grew up with that made me vigilant about extremism and curious and concerned.”

In “Nina & Irena,” which will be released through The New Yorker on the magazine’s digital channels on Wednesday, Lambroso’s Polish-born grandmother Nina Gottlieb — 90 during filming and 91 now — opens up after eight decades about her experiences during the Holocaust, when she lost about 25 members of her family, including her sister, Irena. Only she and her parents survived.

The New Yorker Studios film relates Gottlieb’s tale through on-camera interviews with Gottlieb that are interspersed with archival footage. Much of the film depicts simple moments of joy with her family, such as doing Zoom yoga with her grandson and her 90th birthday party surrounded by her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Gottlieb is fully independent, lives alone in Long Island and still has an active lifestyle.

“The film is about the richness of her life,” Lombroso said. “There’s a lot of what they call Holocaust fatigue that we all grew up watching a lot of Holocaust films and hearing from survivors and you expect certain things. You expect the train tracks and you expect Auschwitz and smoke and it was very important for me to not necessarily avoid the horrors — you have to understand the horrors — but also balance them with the comedy of her life. She’s so funny.”

The film has been a success on the festival circuit, including winning best short film at the Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride. The documentary festival DOC NYC included it among its “Short Lists” predictions for top contenders for Oscars and other awards.

Growing up in New Rochelle, New York, Lombroso knew that his grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, but she never spoke about her experiences during the war. She thought her stories were too horrible for her children and grandchildren when they were young. She always thought she would tell them later, but later never came. Lombroso realized that now was his chance to finally ask, before it was too late.

In the film, Gottlieb talks about her childhood in Kielce, Poland, and her relationship with her sister, spying on Irena and tattling to their mother. Even when discussing her sister’s disappearance, she has a matter-of-fact way of telling these stories, accepting what happened and not dwelling on the past.

Lombroso said her testimony helped him avoid the cliches of documentary filmmaking. Too often, he explained, “you’ve gotten your main subject to pour themselves out in front of the camera like it’s a therapy session. My grandmother doesn’t go there,” he said. “At first, I thought that would be a problem.” However, “with distance and going through screenings, I realized that’s what makes the film so different and special. Her message is one that you don’t hear much: Keep going in life. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. And if someone like her doesn’t feel sorry for herself [after] losing upwards of 20 family members, then I certainly can’t.”

Another surprising aspect of the documentary is Gottlieb’s compassion for her tormentors. Having been evacuated to Prague, she saw the liberated Czechs pour tar on German officers and burn them alive. She was horrified.

“One of the worst moments of the Holocaust for her was watching a German officer be burned alive by Czech bystanders. She says, ‘You don’t do that to other people. We’re all born little adorable children. What happens to us?” Lombroso said. “The person she has sympathy for is her perpetrator and I just find that so rare in this day and age.”

In order to get this level of honesty from his grandmother, Lombroso approached this project, his first personal film, like his previous work at The New Yorker, where he is a staff filmmaker, and before that at The Atlantic.

“I’m used to embedding myself with people who I disagree with. I always try to understand subjects in the same way. Even when I was dealing with Richard Spencer, who is a famous white nationalist, I was trying to understand the root of his ideology and how he became who he is today,” he said. “I wanted to understand how someone becomes that f–ked up. We went skiing together and I met his mother. That’s the kind of reporting I just love doing and I think people open up to me because I don’t feel judgmental towards them. I just want to understand.”

And despite his love for his grandmother, he tried to keep a certain creative distance. “My grandmother had no editorial control,” Lombroso said. “She saw the film for the first time a few days before it premiered, and I told her you cannot change anything. And sure, there’s a tenderness in the film that comes through because I love her and feel close to her, but it was important to me not to compromise my practice in any way with her story.”

The one time he did let her weigh in is when he showed her a synopsis of the film that mentioned survivor’s guilt. She was furious.

“She said, ‘I don’t feel guilty about anything,’” Lombroso said. “I think it’s important to see someone like her and that’s what makes her so inspiring.”

[vampirejuno]

🎲? also your mum is so based for that rant

Wildcard!

Ok I'm gonna brag a lil bit and tell you abt my coding project from last year. I built these 2 telegraph tower models connected with wires, and each tower had a chip in it with a little screen and some buttons. And I programmed them so that you could press these two buttons on a screen, one for a dot one for a dash, and put in Morse letters to send to the other tower. And the person on the other end would receive it already translated into regular letters and it would read back the message (it was a very basic chip + program so coding that took. A while lol)

And also I coded it to constantly send "GNU Terry Pratchett" back and forth but without reading it back, so it would stay in the overhead, so to speak :3

And thanks my mom's reactions to discworld have been very entertaining so far bfsdhkffj

[pitchkart]

Fire Emblem Blazing Sword Primer

Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword is about to drop on NSO for Switch! Known simply as Fire Emblem here, this was the first game to be localized outside of Japan. Twenty years later, the series’s popularity has skyrocketed to heights I could not have ever dreamed of and it’s beautiful.

With all the new blood introduced by Awakening, Three Houses, and even Engage, you might be curious about this entry and want to check it out. This post will serve as a quick guide for getting started.

#1: The tutorial is LONG

I’m not kidding. It’s not like new games where it’s a blip on the screen and then it’s gone. Lyn’s going to be talking the most basic of basics. Remember this was the first game in the series to be released to a western audience, so the training wheels are going to be on for a while. Like, the next 10 chapters. It will drag if you know your shit, but for newbies, I would argue this is the one of the best ways to get acquainted with the series. It will beat the basics into you and help you establish good habits for executing your strategy. Bear with it for the time being, I promise it gets better! In future playthroughs you can disable the tutorial messaging.

#2: Permadeath is on, but NSO rewind is your Turnwheel, so it’s going to be okay.

This was made before Casual Mode or Mila’s Turnwheel Divine Pulse Draconic Time Crystal was a thing, so back in the day if you made an error, you’d either have to live with it or restart the chapter from the beginning. Fuck that, though, it’s 2023 and we have the technology. If you want to relive those days as a challenge, by all means go off, but I won’t be wagging my finger at you if you decide you don’t have time for that shit anymore. Do what you gotta to enjoy this game.

#3 Experience is limited in this game, so make sure you distribute it evenly among your team*

I mean it. For the love of God, don’t funnel it all into Rath. For all the characters you’ll be able to recruit, you’ll only be able to deploy 10-15 per map. Build a strong core, and you’ll be ready for anything the game throws at you.

#4 Pursuant to the above, Marcus is a great unit, but don’t rely on him too heavily.

Newer players might assume Marcus to be a trap unit like Vander at first blush, but he’s a surprisingly decent unit throughout. The issue is that he starts out promoted, meaning he won’t get nearly as much experience on killing an enemy unit as another unit lower in levels will. Efficiency is the word of the day, dear readers. Use Marcus when you need him, but not at the expense of your other characters’ growth. Give him a weaker weapon, bait out the enemies, soften ‘em up, then let the units you want to level finish ‘em off and you’ll have your army up and running like a well-oiled machine.

#5 Double-check enemy ranges

This was sadly before there was a handy dandy button you could push to see the Danger Zone, so be extra mindful when you play. Also, keep in mind that even though the range might display it, only a handful of bosses actually move from where they’re parked.

#6 Get in formation, soldier!

God dammit, stick together. You don’t have Emblem superpowers anymore and enemy reinforcements aren’t as loudly telegraphed in older games as they are now. Building a solid defensive line and being aware of how many enemies can approach a unit at any given time might save your life. Always have at least one buddy!

#7 Always have at least one unit guard Merlinus’s tent

Merlinus is your convoy in this game. If you want to be able to put items into an inventory during a map, you’ll have to deploy him. The caveat is he’s a stationary unit who can’t fight, and while it’s usually not a problem, sometimes IS is cheeky and puts reinforcements by him. This will become less of an issue as the game persists and he promotes, but until then, hang in there.

#8 When you play fog-of-war maps, have your thieves use torches

Thieves have the best vision in night/fog maps, and torches further enhance this, so this is the best bang for your buck.

#9 Weapon weight is tested against CON, similar to Build in Engage

The difference is a unit’s build isn’t something that can grow like in Engage. The only way for a character to get more build is to either promote or use a Body Ring, and those are pretty rare.

#10 As a result of the above, you’re going to be using Iron weapons most of the time.

It’s okay. Most of the time Iron will do the trick.

#11 Conserve Rapier/Wolf Beil/Mani Katti charges when you can, but don’t wait till it’s fucking Christmas to use them

Lyn will get her Mani Katti charges reset after chapter 10 and I think there’s one more of Eliwood’s Rapier or Hector’s Wolf Beil depending on which story you do. You can also get the Hammerne staff that repairs weapons, but it only has three charges.

#12 If possible, wait for a unit to hit level 20 before you promote them.

Since the levels you can get are finite, you’ll need to make the most of your units’ growth rates.

#13 Effective damage is only x2 in this game, not x3 like other games.

It’s still gonna hurt if you make a mistake, but it’s going to make your life harder half the time.

#14 The support system in this game is rough

If you think gathering supports in Engage was painful, you’re in for a rude awakening. The only way to gather support points in Blazing Sword is to have two units end their turn next to each other, and some of them take a lot of turns to trigger. What’s more, each unit can have five support conversations per playthrough (for example, an A support with one character and a B support with another character, or an A or two Cs). This means if you want to collect all the supports, you will need to replay the game several times. As always, hit up Serenes Forest if you want more information on the particulars.

Bonus* #15: Okay, I lied, there is a way to get more experience.

There are arenas on certain maps where units can fight for money, but it’s a risky proposition, considering they can die in there. NSO rewind/save states will mitigate this somewhat, however, and starting on chapter 20E/21H, Ninian will trivialize this.

Her ring, Ninis’ Grace, grants a defense buff for one turn when she dances for a unit. This buff does not go away if a unit is rescued before enemy phase starts. See where I’m going with this?

1) Buff unit with Ninis’ Grace

2) Have them fight in the arena

3) Rescue them once they’re done fighting

4) End turn

5) Have rescuer #2 take/drop unit

6) Heal as necessary

7) Have Ninian do a regular dance

8) Repeat steps 2-7

And there you have it. Blazing Sword is a lovely game and holds a special place in my heart. It’s very much a product of its time, but I still hope y’all enjoy—

Oh you’ve got to be kidding me.

You had one job, Nintendo.

[adultswim2021]

Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! #26: “Jim and Derrick” | September 1, 2008 - 12:30AM | S03E06

One of the all-time greatest. It’s somewhat of an in-joke; in that a literal first-time viewer might not pick up exactly on what’s going on (you’d hope the more observant would at least be able to infer it’s satiric nature). This episode of Awesome Show presents, without fanfare or even any preamble, an alternate-universe version of Tim and Eric named Jim and Derrick. Jim and Derrick are basically the versions of Tim & Eric whose post-internet career paths had them so desperate to get on television that they became willing to bend to every network note ever given to them. It's as if Tim & Eric’s artistic vision was easily compromised by MTV money.

What we get is a frenetic nightmare of rapid-cutting, sweaty, shallow signifiers of easily digestible coolness, fad-chasing, and lowest-common denominator humor that sells itself with attitude rather than anything inspired. Jim Heckler and Derek Whipple host the show from an MTV-style faux-industrial studio with a DJ and a corporate sponsor in Turbo Fuel. Turbo Fuel is an energy drink that is immediately shown to have negative effects even in the cold open spot (a man vomits with ‘tude towards the camera, and we see blood trickling out of his nose post-chug).

Jim & Derrick are coarse and lazy; so much so that they come off as heroin addicts or something like that. They speak in all manner of embarrassing/trendy vernacular. It screams early 2000s in a way that their show usually doesn’t. They do segments about buying bongs (with Tim’s quotable line “plus, I like frogs”), skateboarding, tattoos, and they frequently cut away to other things that have little to do with scripted sketch comedy.

The only thing that actually qualifies as an in-universe bonafide comedy sketch in the whole thing is cheap and dashed-off, and co-stars a guy who just screams “dude on the writing staff”.* The “sketch”, ends with Jim saying “that’s wack”, then a back-patty musical interlude with a bunch of comedy-related buzz-words rolls out (including Tim & Eric’s favorite: “RANDOM”). They both declare “You’ve been sketched!” into the camera. The entire sketch is encased in a metal border. It gives the impression that the Jim & Derrick Show was at one time way more focused on scripted comedy, but then that aspect shrunk so much that sketches became once per episode, and they eventually started shrinking the screen to diminish the sketches even further. It's a physical manifestation of the comedy being "contained."

*”dude on the writing staff”: It’s LA comedy stalwart Joe Wagner, who did indeed hold similar jobs on a lot of shows, some good, even! I remember he posted on a message board I was on and he hosted a podcast that I remembered being good, even though I don’t remember the name of it. 

Other touches include an announcer who is the same guy from the then-current Carl’s Jr. ads, which were very bro-ey and usually featured Playboy models eating large drippy hamburgers. There’s also transitions that look like they came directly from VH1’s I Love the 90s, featuring internetty imagery like folder icons and whatnot. There’s also frenetic cutaways to a “creepy” old man who makes googly faces at the camera with fake old-timey film effects covering it, to telegraph nasty jokes like when Derrick says he wishes Elisha Cuthbert was his daughter in a gross, suggestive way. 

She’s in this, by the way. Jim and Derrick interview her and it does not go particularly well, with Jim and Derrick rudely cutting her off when she’s about to actually get to say anything of substance. She rolls her eyes and says “great” seeming genuinely annoyed. This is an incredible bit of acting, because a significant number of people believed that her annoyance was genuine, and that the wool was pulled over her eyes. I vaguely recall (but unfortunately don’t have) a video commentary for this episode that aired on Adult Swim’s website. They assured the audience that she was in on the joke, and indeed, if you seek out the blooper reel for this season you’ll see the first time Tim cuts her off in the same manner, she bursts out laughing. 

Speaking of guest stars, John Mayer is in this episode during the fake commercial. I remember Tim & Eric discussing this almost as if they put him in here via process of elimination. Mayer wanted to be on the show and they had a little trouble finding a place for him. He also filmed a “you’re watching Jim and Derrick” bumper that didn’t wind up getting used. 

The commercial is for a GF Spooner, which is basically like a baby bjorn that you strap your girlfriend into. It comes with fake arms that she can cuddle with, keeping your arms free. It’s purpose is to wear at concerts so you can double-fist Turbo Fuels, and hold hands with your male friends. The woman in the commercial was vaguely familiar to me: She plays one of Howard’s girlfriends in the criminally underrated program Austin Stories. I remember Tim trying to make Doug Lussenhop squirm during the video commentary, suggesting that he tried and failed to hit on her during production. When Doug doesn’t take the bait, an exasperated Tim suggests that he���s just looking for ANYTHING to talk about that’s even a little bit interesting. AGAIN: I wish I had it!

Another segment of note is Bradley Needlehead, in the Viral Clip of the week. This is an alternate version of David Liebe-Hart, singing a song about being a crazy guy that believes in aliens. It seems to satirize the lack of respect an MTV-style network would have for a guy like DLH. Though Tim & Eric’s “respect” for DLH is a little questionable, I do agree that they are kinder to him than most would be. In that video commentary, they said DLH directed that segment himself, dashing any expectations of him being blindsided by it. To be a fly on the wall during that session. There’s no footage of this shoot on the DVD. 

Holly Brown makes another appearance on the show; her bit is sorta slight, and I’d wager that it was a gift they were giving her so she could put it on a reel to try and get on-camera announcer work. Her presence fits with the whole vibe; many of these shows will have hot women as correspondents or hosts. The main comedic takeaway from this one is the concept of Tordos Flavor Dust, which has little to do with the actual scene.

The show ends with Jim & Derrick doing a Turbo Boost chug contest, where a hot, but uh, artificial-looking woman, smiles and sprays a keg tap of Turbo Boost into both Jim & Derrick’s mouths. We eventually see blood coming out of their eyes and ears, and they succumb to the toxic beverage and collapse dead on the floor. The woman never stops smiling and spraying Turbo Boost. DJ Drez doesn't stop the beats, either. Then we get a slideshow of fake production logos, including, most memorably, Gregg Turkington saying “Egg Zackly” as a parody of their own “Abso-Lutely” 

This one’s not just in the pantheon of great episodes, but it also joins the ranks of episodes that I’ve watched over-and-over again, so much so that they sorta lost most of their power, so I have to go off memories of how good it was. I recall telling somebody that I laughed so hard at this episode that it caused me to punch stuff that I own while watching it. It’s only with that kind of hindsight that I can recognize that some of the sketches are a little more potent in their satire than others. But the whole thing works incredibly well, and even the weakest bits have inspired jokes and ideas.

A welcome respite from an otherwise lackluster season. Say what you want about season three, but one will forever be able to point to this episode and say "at least that season had Jim and Derrick".

EPHEMERA CORNER:

Jim and Derrick at Spring Break

I forget exactly when and why these were produced, but Tim & Eric did additional Jim & Derrick "spring break" sketches. It would make more sense for them to have been produced for Spring Break 2009, but I'm putting them here for relevance. I don't think they repeated Jim & Derrick on Awesome Show itself.

[natromanxoff]

The Daily Telegraph - April 21, 1992

Credits to Roberto Macchi.

Keep yourself alive, Liz Taylor tells Mercury fans

By Susannah Herbert

ROCK and Roll made a valiant attempt to part company with sex and drugs last night as 72,000 fans and 38 musicians gathered in Wembley Stadium to commemorate Freddie Mercury and raise money to fight Aids, the disease which killed him last November,

But though this was music with a message — in the words of an old Mercury song, "Keep Yourself Alive" — there was precious little evidence of the new puritanism on Wembley’s packed pitch. Fans, who had paid £25 each, flaunted their allegiance to a man more famous for camping it up in fishnet tights and clinging rubber than moral restraint.

Nineteen-year-old Karen Murphy, from Leicester, who had been sweltering in her PVC catsuit since she started queuing at noon, summed it up: "I'm here for Freddie and the music, not for Aids. It's a rock concert, not a sermon.”

An ignorant onlooker might have disagreed, especially when Elizabeth Taylor lectured the crowd on the blessings of another kind of clinging rubber; the condom. "Look at yourselves," she said. "Look at how many you are. In just two short weeks, there will be as many new infections as there are people here tonight.

“Protect yourselves! Every time you have sex, use a condom. Every single time. Straight sex, gay sex, bisexual sex, use a condom whoever you are. And if you use drugs, don't share the needle."

The theme was developed in the choice of songs — such numbers as “Too Much Love Will Kill You" — but the mob was not there to criticise, especially when the remaining members of Mercury's band. Queen, took the stage with George Michael, David Bowie and Elton John, who was reported to have given miss taylor a £100,000 diamoral ring before the show as a tribute to her Aids campaigning.

Bowie later interrupted the show to recite the Lord's Prayer, "I would also like us to remember our friends who have died recently or in the distant past, friends who are still living and members of our family who have been depleted by this dreadful disease."

Between live acts, Mercury appeared on the video screens singing his songs and talking about his music.

The tickets had sold out hours after the concert was announced in February, and last night the organisers hoped that the profits from ticket receipts and TV rights sold to 70 countries would be more than £3.8 million.

[certified-opinion-haver]

Glass Onion (2022) dir. Rian Johnson

Advance cinema screening.

Detective Benoit Blanc receives a mysterious invitation to a private party hosted by billionaire Miles Bron. As the evening progresses Benoit will have to use his world renowned detective skills to stay one step ahead of his prestigious company.

A sequel to 2019's excellent Knives Out once again features Daniel Criag's wonderfully absurd Detective Blanc navigating a whodunit mystery with a stellar ensemble supporting cast. Unlike the previous film Blanc plays a much more central role this time around (which you may find more interesting or a bit of a let down), the supporting characters are all incredibly entertaining. The film makes excellent use of its Greek setting and creates a utopian island paradise that provides an excellent set for the bombastic mystery ahead.

The films commentary is a bit on the nose but is also incredibly timely, it feels like this film could have been written and shot last week (as oppose to during the 2020 lockdown). Despite the bluntness of the messaging it all works with the film and never distracts from the plot, and usually works to deliver some excellent comedy.

However, the film isn't without some shortcomings. It's hard to discuss without risking giving too much away but the narrative does take a very different direction to the more traditionally paced murder mystery of Knives Out which lead me to feel like I was being left out of the loop in order for the story's twists and turns to have a bigger impact. The joy of Knives Out was having access to most of the information Blanc did so you felt like you were solving the mystery along side the detective, obviously the audience won't always be world famous detectives but the film original did a good job of telegraphing these reveals moments before Blanc made other characters aware (which was immensely satisfying). Glass Onion chooses a different route to this with mixed results.

Those few negatives aside, this film is still an excellent follow up and is absolutely worth watching for any crime/mystery fans.

8/10

[sublimeobservationarcade]

The Conservative Playbook: Dutton’s Political Strategy

The global conservative stratagem is founded on an appeal to the mediocrity of lazy members of our nations. Their message to the predominantly white voters is that you are just fine the way you are and the changing world is wrong. The conservative playbook: Dutton’s political strategy. On energy in Australia the LNP messaging to the populace is that climate change is too complex to worry about and not an Australian problem at its core. Therefore, they embrace property owners who don’t want their view besmirched by wind farms and value their minority concerns over the value to the community of renewable energy solutions to global warming. Instead, they champion nuclear power as an alternative to the safe and free power offered by wind and solar. This is despite Australia having no existing nuclear industry and the reality that it would take a decade or more to establish a viable reactor and the infrastructure around the sector at enormous cost (hundreds of billions of dollars).

LNP Promises No Nasty Wind Farms For Those Upset About Them

The Coalition’s message to a largely ignorant electorate is – “don’t worry we’ll take care of it for you.” Most Australians have no idea about the transition taking place in our energy sector and the power grid. They hear plenty of negative stuff from the Murdoch owned media group controlling our newspapers and radio networks (The Australian, Daily Telegraph, Courier Mail, Herald Sun, and 99 radio stations across AM, FM & DAB+). Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp are an organisation with a rabid right wing bias. See Fox News and Sky News Australia as clear examples of this non-objective op/ed fest in action on our airwaves and screens. Fossil fuel interests curry favour via  the campaign donations made to both main political parties in Australia. Their advertising budgets fuel News Corp’s survival as a media organisation. Australia has long been overly influenced by a duopoly of corporate media interests to the detriment of ordinary Australians. The media is now completely dominated by PR, as real investigative journalism disappears. You will never hear any positive messaging regarding renewable energy out of the LNP or the Murdoch press. Despite this Australian home owners have embraced solar power on their rooves in record numbers.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Dutton’s Nuclear Option Pie In The Sky For Short Term Political Favour

The reality is that the old baseload power requirements of the energy grid are no longer relevant in the 21C. The demise of coal powered stations will not be replaced by a like for like type of energy generation. Gas powered stations are a short term gap filler. Renewable energy generated power is fast taking over the demands of our needs. We need to invest in more large scale batteries and storage technologies for all the free renewable power we generate. Nuclear powered energy is not something that will work with in concert with all of our free renewable generated electricity because it needs to be on all the time. You cannot switch nuclear on and off when the need arises like gas in the short term. Therefore, we would be wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on a type of energy generation not compatible with the transition already well underway. Peter Dutton is putting forward something completely outside of what we require. The business community and the energy sector does not support the nuclear option because they understand what is going on to some degree. The Coalition claims they will build these reactors themselves – this is laughable. Politicians cannot build anything and have been out of the game of actually running businesses and projects for decades. Remember neoliberalism and small government, Peter? Snowy 2.0 is an LNP fast tracked special project and that is literally bogged down in billion dollar delays. It is a good example of a government infrastructure project rushed and stuffed up. Dutton doing the same with nuclear reactor projects could be disastrous. Dutton Telling Australia It Can Stick Its Head In The Sand It is all part of the conservative playbook: Dutton’s political strategy of telling voters what they want to hear in the short term. You can stick your head in the sand and pretend global warming isn’t real. You can keep your unblemished view to keep your property prices tickety-boo. No need for any nasty wind turbines on the horizon. The solution? We will spend hundreds of billions of dollars on nuclear power, an unsuitable and incredibly expensive technology with never ending safety dangers. Australians are not the sharpest tools in the shed. I mean, we end up with asbestos products in the mulch around our parks and in our school yards. ‘She’ll be right mate’ wont cut it when things go Fukushima. But you will have a nice view as long as they didn’t build that reactor in your neighbourhood. They will probably locate them all in Labor electorates, however, just to be on the safe side.

LNP Courting Intolerance & Racism Similarly, the LNP has shifted to the far right to rub affectionately up against the intolerant members of our communities. Those condemning anybody different. Telling the racists and white supremacists its okay to hold onto their toxic beliefs. Dutton is dog whistling up intolerance toward immigrants, indigenous Australians, and the LGBTQI community. The strategy promotes divisiveness over acceptance. Gender identity politics sees a growing split between how men and women view issues within our society. Transgender members of our community are being made lightning rods by conservative forces in their cultural wars. Sky News Australia click baits on the back of inflammatory headlines about trans members seeking equality within our society. Christian fundamentalists want to maintain their Bronze Age dictated ideologies which promote the persecution and shunning of LGBTQI human beings from their schools, businesses, and organisations. The transgender debate is a media beat up, like the youth crime beat up at the state level. The numbers do not add up on either of these topics when multi million populations are taken into consideration. These are designed to inflame and enrage voters disproportionately to the actual statistical facts of what is occurring. The conservative playbook: Dutton’s political strategy. The Inaction Of Coalition Governments The LNP blame everything on Albo despite the fact that they had more than 9 years in office to oversee the economy we have right now. This is par for the course when it comes to Oppositions within the Westminster system. Apportioning blame rightly or wrongly is the name of the game. In reality, the housing crisis comes on the back of inaction by both LNP and Labor in this space for decades. Social housing what is that? That is a state problem. Neoliberalism and the credo – ‘the market is always right!’ This small government economic approach has been with us since Reagan and Thatcher influenced Australia in this direction back in the 1980s. The LNP message is that it is OK that we have the lowest fuel standards among the Western nations. You can keep your diesel beast poisoning our air quality. No worries. The Coalition actually achieve little when in government, they just roll over for their mates in the corporate sphere. Gutting the public service to direct billions of tax payer dollars to their mates in the consultancy sector. Lowering tax rates for the wealthy and looking after their friends is a constant theme underpinning their economic policies. Funny that we get bugger all tax from the gas and mining sectors in comparison to other resource rich nations, like Norway and Qatar. I wonder what that is all about? Jobs for the boys after a stint in parliament, perhaps. The big end of town hardly pays any tax at all, as they leave that to the poor schmucks who pay income tax. Family trusts and tax minimisation schemes are very popular in Oz. We do not tax wealth in this country, in fact we make it much easier for the rich to become exponentially much richer.

Photo by Arthur Ogleznev on Pexels.com Robodebt & The Coalition Robodebt was an ideological attack upon the poorest and most vulnerable members of our population. Many of these ideas come from America, where making poverty an individual failing has been a stratagem for years. Rich equals good, poor equates with bad. This simple credo allows the very wealthy end of town to avoid any responsibility for those suffering from the effects of poverty within our communities. Lowering and flattening tax rates for corporations and billionaires comes on the back of this. Making society into a game of winners and losers is the outcome of this political stratagem. Demonising welfare recipients is the next logical step in this game. Robodebt falsely accused 500, 000 Australians of owing large amounts of money to Centrelink and forced them to pay these funds back. Scott Morrison, Marise Payne, Stuart Robert and Alan Tudge were directly involved in this illegal government program. Some victims of Robodebt killed themselves in despair over being wrongly accused of owing large amounts of money. PwC was involved in the creation of Robodebt via its consultancy work. Kathryn Campbell was the senior bureaucrat running Robodebt for many years. A Royal Commission later found the program to be illegal and knowingly founded on dubious grounds by those at the very top. However, despite this and Robodebt costing tax payers $800 million in a settled class action brought by some of the victims nobody has been criminally prosecuted. This is the way things work in Australia, as hardly any politician or civil servant has been prosecuted for crimes associated with the misuse of their office. Many more pollies have been gaoled for sex crimes committed upon children. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_politicians_convicted_of_crimes

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com Campaign Donations Distorting Australian Democracy The allure of power takes careerists into amoral territory where they cross the line. The ridiculous system, we currently have, where influence can be bought via campaign donations to political parties sets us up for corruption and minority control of our democracy. The wealthy and corporate players have much louder voices within our democratic system of government. Why don’t we do something about this? We could end these donations tomorrow and replace it with tax payer funded electioneering. The two main political parties enjoy their close contact with power via the wealthy and will not willingly give it up. The lobbying by big business and vested interests increases day by day to the detriment of the majority of Australians. Your voice and mine are made much smaller as a result of the private funding of the political process in Australia. Conservative Smoke Screens & Identity Politics The continuing promotion of identity politics by conservative forces here and globally will see greater division between populations. Dutton beats the drum over the Voice and ensures its failure to achieve constitutional recognition. Racism rises in Australia during this period and since the vote. Dutton makes a disproportionate hoo-ha about a tiny number of refugees who had completed their prison sentences for crimes being released into the community via a High Court ruling. Another beat up designed to make ordinary Australians feel unsafe. The Coalition has been dragging its feet over Australia’s response to climate change and the energy transition for decades. Dutton’s championing of property owner’s impacted by new power line pathways for the energy grid and potential wind farms is more head in the sand stuff. Further to this is the pie in the sky idea about Oz going nuclear – this is already adversely impacting investment for renewables by creating uncertainty about future government energy policies. Dutton is a wrecker for his short term political ambitions. The LNP either do not understand the energy transition happening in terms of its technical requirements for the mix or are wilfully delaying it for their own interests and that of the fossil fuel industry. Gas has been embraced by both political parties as a transitional energy source but the question remains how long our dependency on it will last. The gas sector continues to pay bugger all tax despite the massive exports they sell internationally from mining our resources. Multinational corporations derive hundreds of billions and we get a few paltry million from dysfunctional taxes like the PRRT. “Australians will have often heard how our gas industry has been booming over the past 10 years, generating great wealth and supposedly leading our economy. Remember former Prime Minister, Scott Morrison calling for a “gas-led recovery”. Australians might be less aware of just how little gas companies – who are making massive profits off the back of the Russian invasion of Ukraine – pay in tax.” - (https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/yes-the-government-collects-more-money-from-hecs-than-it-does-from-the-petroleum-resource-rent-tax/)

Who Are You Going To Believe? Too many Australians do not question the agenda behind those media outlets feeding them news. We have been victims of duopolies for too long. A lack of real choice, apart from the ABC, means corporate media in Australia singing from the same song sheet. Even the ABC has become cowed of late, after many years of false accusations of bias by the LNP. Many journalists will not criticise News Corp’s newspapers and programs because they may want a well paid job with that major organisation in the near future. Recently, the ABC has been parroting News Corp slants on stories and so we get a Greek chorus of amplified and repetitive voices all saying the same thing. Everything has moved to the right in Australia and Dutton’s federal Liberals are ever closer to the far right. Telling lies to the Australian people and beating up social anxieties for political favour is the new order of the day.   Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©HouseTherapy Read the full article

[am--f]

The world is like this. New objects proliferate like flora. Environments get printed out. Hybrid forms bloom. Backgrounds are rendered, divided into sections, transferred.

The world is like this. It is cut on the floor, it is patterned across the slope. It comes in various resolutions. There are compression artifacts, blocky forms of blur that confuse discreteness with continuity. They are metabolic, spreading like organisms. There is something molten about a digital file just as there is something molten about a jelly-fish or a fragment of lace or a seashore or a plastic bottle of detergent. Everything depends upon the scale.

Moiré means “watered silk,” 1650s, from the French moire (17c.), or mohair. Mohair is from the 1610s, earlier mocayre, 1560s, fine hair of the Angora goat, also a fabric made from this, from French mocayart (16c.), Italian mocaiarro, both from Arabic mukhayyar or cloth made from goat hair, literally “selected, choice,” from mu-, noun prefix, + khayar “choosing, preferring.”

A moiré is an optical effect created by the superimposition of one transparent pattern onto another pattern. The patterns are nearly the same, but with a difference. It usually has something to do with screens, with the interference patterns that emerge from screens or screening operations. Maybe one screen is a textile, and another is made of diodes. A third screen produces blurry clusters of ink. The effect is always more or less the same: watery, rippling wavelike over the surface. It’s not quite right to say surface, because you are somewhere in between the surface and the depths. In fact, you choose neither, prefer neither. Enchanted where wave-lengths cut you. A certain liquidity emerges here, a function of two different registers, two different levels, neither selected. A liquid has hard edges. You are cut apart by wave-break upon wave-break.

The world is like this. I draw a curtain across my window. Something like lace. Behind it, a screen. Behind it, a sea-garden. In it, flowers. Rose cut in rock. Border on border of scented pinks. Framework of the wing of a dove. I draw a strip of curtain across the too insistent greatness of the world without. I establish grids and coordinate points. I put a veil over the view.

H.D. writes about the clarity of screening out, of obscuring. The clarity of the veil. It’s a kind of liquid perception: a cap of consciousness over your head, affecting, a little, your eyes. It’s like water, transparent, fluid yet with definite body, contained in a definite space, like a closed sea plant, jelly-fish, or anemone. Enchanted where wave-lengths cut you. Optical apparatuses. One lens or two? Opera glass or jelly-fish or microscope? What is this clarity, these cuts, this piercing focus, this severity? These edges in a field of soft focus? A rose is a clear rose, a rose cut in rock, a hard rose, hard like hail. A flower is an attractor in whatever material. You are the world-edge. Your hand caught at this; the root snapped under your weight. Sand cuts your petal, furrows it with hard edge.

We are dealing with signal processing, with questions of interpolation and aliasing. What happens when you scan or sample a source and later try to reconstruct the source? What kinds of disorienting reversals, shifts in scale and motion, might take place?

H.D. writes about media of transmission and storage. If we had the right sort of brains, she says, we would receive definite messages from the figures we see, like dots and lines ticked off by one receiving station, received and translated into definite thought by another telegraphic center. Each bend of the arm, each draping garment, each whorl of hair, each angling of the chin, each tilt of the head: these are telegraphic centers, information sources hiding behind transmission stations. The fruit tree and the human body are both receiving stations. A soap dish is a receiving station. A meat hook is a receiving station. A plastic flower is a receiving station. The world is not made of things but of communication. This is why it can be decomposed and recomposed in code. We want receiving stations for dots and dashes.

The world is like this. Perhaps ordinary things never become quite unreal.

(Exhibition text for Sophronia Cook at Long Play Contemporary, Santa Monica, CA)

[themovieblogonline]

SILENCE 2: THE NIGHT OWL BAR SHOOTOUT Review: A Mystery Thriller

Silence 2: The Night Owl Bar Shootout is a new mystery thriller that acts as a sequel to the 2021 Silence… Can You Hear It. However, the sequel has very little, if any connections to the original, so prior viewing is not required. The new thriller has a lot going on, sometimes to its detriment. While the morals and message of the story are well-intentioned, the execution feels overly complicated as it becomes guilty of trying to do too much all at once. Read on for my full Silence 2 review.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNIoC1oNOj8&pp=ygUkc2lsZW5jZSAyIHRoZSBuaWdodCBvd2wgYmFyIHNob290b3V0 Please note that the following Silence 2 review will be completely spoiler-free.  The Story Of Silence 2 A grisly multiple murder shooting at a dive bar beckons ACP Avinash Verma (Manoj Bajpayee) to the scene. Even before he arrives, his boss tells him that the shoot-out has to do with a politician’s secretary, and Avinash gets the case to ensure the murders don’t expose anything embarrassing for the government. So when we get the revelation that this is a Red Herring in the plot later on, it’s hardly a surprise, seeing how it was telegraphed from earlier.  As Avinash digs deeper, the shoot-out becomes connected to a plethora of other, larger conspiracies involving blackmail, sex, human trafficking, queer victimizing, and many other social issues. It’s almost all too much for the execution to properly handle, so it comes off as a surface-level examination only, without any nuance. While certain aspects of the thriller mystery feel very well written, such as the technical forensic jargon. Which, while maybe a little far-fetched, was no less believable than those CSI TV shows from the early 2000s. More dramatic flair than an attempt at a realistic depiction.  Manoj Bajpayee Carries The Movie With A Serviceable Supporting Cast While the story in this Silence 2 review may not be perfect, its lead actor is impeccable. The always-talented Bajpayee is his charming self, committing to every moment and delivering a fine performance. Bajpayee makes a meal out of the material he has to work with, and I wish he had more to do. While the story moves at a moderate pace, enough to keep audiences engaged, it’s almost too focused on its murder mystery plot. We can’t really connect as an audience to Avinash, because we know nothing about his personal life, or who he is outside of his job. Barring one pretty great scene when his daughter checks in on him in his new house. Avinash is clearly lonely and dealing with some things, and I wish the story explored more of his demons and how they affect his work.  Similarly, the supporting cast of Silence 2 has some talent included. Avinash’s seemingly second in command is Inspector Bhatia (Prachi Desai), who I’ve been a fan of for a while. However, besides just being another cop on the case, we learn nothing about her personal life. Same with Sahil Vaid, who made a name playing the hero’s sidekick in comedies like Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania. Seeing him in a more serious crime thriller in Silence 2 was very intriguing, but again, I wish his character had more to do.  Silence 2 Movie Review Is Spoiler-Free Ultimately, Silence 2 is an engaging watch that moves along at a pretty decent pace. But the runtime would have been better served if the main characters were fleshed out more, and more screen time given to them, than the myriad of misdirections and seemingly separate plot lines. The writing of the movie is very ambitious as it struggled with a very complex plot with plot twists and threads that, for the most part, work. But the execution of how it all comes together feels too much to take on. For example, there’s a weird Keyser Soze-like montage near the end of act two, but the ultimate climax never connects the efforts of the villains to that scene. Silence 2 is a serviceable watch with friends or in a group setting, especially for Bajpayee whose performance makes up for any lack of writing or execution.  Silence 2: The Night Owl Bar Shootout is now streaming on ZEE5.  What did you think of Silence 2? Let us know in the comments below. Or follow me on X (formerly Twitter) at @theshahshahid for more Bollywood thoughts.  

[manonamora-if-reviews]

The Whale's Keeper by Ben Parzybok

============= Links

Play the game (IFComp) See other reviews of the game

============= Synopsis

You appear to have been swallowed by a whale. Expect to find wonders and horrors, mythical and real, inside the cavernous belly of the greatest mammal on Earth. Fortunately, you’re a cetologist. This story is delivered via Plotopolis - at this point, a proof-of-concept interactive fiction journal that publishes to chat platforms - which was written in concert with this story.

============= Other Info

The Whale's Keeper is a Plotopolis game, submitted to the 2023 edition of the IFComp

Status: Completed Genre: Fantasy

CW: Some threads contain (accidental) violence, others talk about suicide.

============= Playthrough

Played: 15-Oct-2023 Playtime: about 30min Rating: - [IFComp vote] Thoughts: Conflicting proof-of-concept

============= Review

The Whale's Keeper is a proof-of-concept piece for the Plotopolis engine, a system where you can play IF through a chat engine like Telegraph or Slack. It takes on the story of Jonah and the whale, as a metaphor for life's struggles and the need to escape those negative aspects. The game includes a sanity meter. I found one ending (a fairly good one?).

Spoilers ahead. It is recommended to play the game first. The review is based on my understanding/reading of the story.

I struggled connecting with the story for this one, as the game went from quite vague about who you are supposed to be to a detailed bleak recollection of your life (which felt a bit of a whiplash honestly*), only to end with a milkwarm connection with the mammal, somehow. I think there must be a specific path where things fall into the right place and the passages flow better into one another. *also not sure why the loss was treated with such nonchalance... it's a bigger deal than just a passing mention. It's a never-closing wound...

Part of my struggle I think stood with the engine itself and the interface of the game. Meant for communication/texting apps, the input works like a parser game (without the fun agency interactions), but the game is built like a choice-based games (with different passages to go through) - it made me wish the options to be clickable links like in a Twine or have more interaction with the environment like with a parser.

There was also quite a bit of friction with the display of the texts and images. The latter were so large, you'd see just half at most when on the screen. It would have been nice if the size could respond to the height of the screen, to be able to enjoy them fully. As for the former, a lot revolved on how the text is displayed and the timing between the messages. Though there is a setting to increase/decrease the reading speed, it was finicky to set up, and I didn't feel like it helped quite a bit. The new messages would also push up the previous one, sending you back to the bottom when a new one appeared, so reading large block of text* required scrolling up and restart reading the message. *some of these blocks were quite long, I wonder whether they were maybe too long for a phone... **the font helped with the whole old school book/typewriter vibe, but not the easiest to read..

On the positive side, I really liked the illustrations, especially the analogue ones in ink(?). Some of the descriptions of the whale's interior were quite vivid, and I thought the interactions with Jonah were interesting.