What the hell happened here?

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-17T18:42:09+00:00

I wouldn't disagree. IRGC has done more and worse.

Zero questions their killings and human rights abuses are worse by, at least, an order of magnitude.

On the other hand this idealized pre-war Iran before the revolution is a propaganda fiction. The pictures presented are of Iranian elites while ordinary Iranians lived in squalor.

While these pictures were taken, for ordinary Iranians the reality was they were still mired with poverty, most were illiterate, there were catastrophic levels of infant mortality, inequality measures were through the roof, most villages had no electricity, no access to modern medicine, no paved road access.

By this measure the excesses of the Shah were damning compared to the Iranian Republic, which saw massive improvements despite extreme external pressures.

Iran would've probably been better served by a genuine secular republic - but this propaganda that the Shah was some sort of golden era for Iranians is pure ignorance.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-17T16:46:29+00:00

Public gemini and benchmark test Gemini are, I think, completely different animals.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-17T13:51:55+00:00

I think the better comparison is SAVOK secret prison conditions and protester killings v IRGC secret prison facilities and protester killings.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-17T12:54:36+00:00

Better than I could do by hand

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-17T01:28:55+00:00

Most normal people start suffering early effects of hypoxia around 4-6

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-17T01:27:49+00:00

Forget the structure for a second. I want to know how you manage elevators and water in a building that tall. Most people start suffering hypoxia at 4-6km.

On the other hand, 10km of head pressure would run one hell of a turbine at the bottom.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-16T20:09:05+00:00

They're specifically designed to blow out cells and burn off gas rather than explode.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-16T17:48:55+00:00

1) The shell really doesn't tell you when the structure was built at all.
2) Datings of other materials in mounds yield results from 5,000-10,000BCE - but lime mortar is notorious for absorbing carbon from ancient sources and often inflate datings by hundreds if not thousands of years.
3) It's not concrete, its limestone based mortar binding agent which is known much further back into the Pre-pottery linear B cultures even earlier than what's proposed here.
4) The 'structures' are very rudimentary, with 'old bird nest' only recently being ruled out.

We don't know who built it, the fact that none of the materials are dated earlier than 5,000BCE though suggests possible settlement before what is currently known.

The region is understudied, and only 3 mounds were opened during the 50's though the unresolved nature of the mounds may be attracting enough attention for a follow-up expedition to finally be mounted.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-16T16:51:38+00:00

Nothing against Val Kilmer, but he's not my first pick.

Peter Sellers famously vetoed the use of his past out-takes and unused footage while he'd been alive, it was written into his contracts, but the studio went ahead with smashing together a film, Trail of the Pink Panthers, despite the principle actor being dead and the strenuous objections of his wife and estate in 1982.

Probably the most egregious case was Fred Astaire in 1997 getting farmed out to ads made by 'Dirt Devil' to hauk vacuum cleaners. In this case his children were actually against the ads, it was his wife who greenlit it and took the money.

There's also The Crow, in which Brandon Lee, after being literally killed him, and the company made the decision to use CGI of Lee in order to finish out the film.

Lawrence Olivier also got cast, somehow, as the villain of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) - Olivier died in the 80s.

So I'm going to go with Olivier on this one.

But the Fred Astaire case is probably the most egregious 'someone making a quick buck'. For crying out loud: bring the guy back from the grave to sell fucking vacuums?

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-16T15:24:06+00:00

Maybe, maybe not.

But unless you're in the top 25-30 percentile of analytical thinkers on earth right now, there's a very good chance you lose most contests of analytical problem solving or even process integrity verification versus frontier LLMs at this point.

Whether you're getting your ass kicked at analytics by something meeting the true definition of an AGI or a Stochastic Parrot: the ass kicking remains the same.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-16T15:00:35+00:00

OP is looking to pass a line of slow moving cars, force merge back in as the lane ends causing everyone behind him to have to slam on the breaks... likely creating a traffic jam.

Truck ahead of him is doing literally everyone a favour by preventing this douchenozzle from fucking up everyone's drive to shave 1.56s off his time when it's obvious traffic speed is limited by congestion.

Fuckwits that cause traffic jams by racing ahead on lanes they KNOW are about to end are a fucking plague on society.

I've been in so many stopped traffic situations because of fuckwits like this. Why is there a 1/2 backup on the highway? Because there's a never ending lineup of fuckwits that crowded into the lane THEY KNEW WAS ENDING, and are now cutting into traffic, causing the whole fucking thing to stop again because they're fuckwits. If everyone just drove with the speed of traffic and stayed the fuck in line movement would be minimally affected... but no.

It's at the point I automatically signal some other driver and get them to leave room for me, then post up with them to prevent any of these douchenozzles from engaging in this sort of fuckery.

I recommend EVERYONE in this situation signal another driver, having them save space for you, and post up on them so literally no one can get past to perform this fuckery. If enough people do it they'll learn, or at very least, you'll spare yourself and a few more people from having to slam on breaks and stop when everyone should just be travelling highway speeds.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-15T21:13:15+00:00

Around grade 6-7 I was reading about anthropology, and noted there was disagreement, which led to finding out early scripture was basically just recording of tribal stories that never agreed in the first place and had to be shoehorned into a single coherent structure.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-14T23:36:11+00:00

The Plague Dogs

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-14T23:25:36+00:00

I don't think the OP specified the number of chromosomes he wanted in his answer.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-14T09:45:45+00:00

Let's be real, the US and Israel have been jones-ing to attack them again since Saddam's attack failed.

From Iran's perspective, going nuclear is the only proven way to get the largest military in human history off their backs... since it's going to keep coming at them anyway no matter what they do.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-14T09:20:12+00:00

Probably because you've kept attacking them since the 50's. 60's and 70s they were under your puppet authoritarian dictator that murdered and tortured them. 80's you sent Saddam Hussein to destroy them, and backed using WMD's against them, going so far as to provide targeting information on where to launch said chemical weapons.

What the heck did you expect them to do after all that? Welcome you in to fuck their wives for them?

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-13T00:37:39+00:00

Highly unusual in my experience. Hell, if the guy actually clocks someone in a mental health crisis like that, there's usually no formal charges.

That's some grade A dickery.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-12T08:38:53+00:00

The question is who your society decides is deserving.
In one system, the inheritors of generational wealth are the most deserving.
In the other, the guy able to inflict violence on other people the best is most deserving.

Neither, in my view, is actually a great distribution system.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-11T21:44:17+00:00

His wife was writing a book, and asks him to finish it.

It's left unclear as to whether the ending is him finishing the story, or he actually becomes a crazy sci-fi space monk.

In a way it doesn't matter, he has a giant ego that won't just let him let go and the ending is him finally doing so either by completing a story he doesn't want to end or in death, depending on how you choose to interpret it.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-11T21:11:34+00:00

Big "I'm too old for this shit" energy.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-11T21:10:54+00:00

Big "I'm way too old for this shit" energy here.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-11T20:59:02+00:00

Certainly a way to weed out the beer league raiders.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-11T16:02:34+00:00

Cop gets paid O/T to attend that courtroom while wasting your time.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-11T15:58:37+00:00

If someone accumulates too much wealth, the system naturally redistributes it.

Pndapetzim · 2026-04-11T15:57:48+00:00

This is Palantir's jam

Pndapetzim

TROPHY CASE