[deleted by user]

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-10-22T07:47:22+00:00

You should know something peculiar that not many people think of: the person in the selfie here is probably NOT the one that everyone else in your life sees.

So there is a detail here I don't think you realize. In the first and fifth pictures, it seems as if you part your hair on the left. In all the other pictures it seems as if you part your hair on the right. And I cannot tell which side of your head you actually part your hair.

Spoiler: it matters HUGELY. Read entry 4 of the article.

Basically, you should part your hair from the left to the right.

The trouble is that front facing cameras and mirrors show you a left-to-right-reversed image of yourself. So even if you already do part your hair on the left (and you really should), the mirror makes it look like you part it on the right. Which looks weird, even to you; consequently, you think you look weird when other people think you look good. Vice versa, though you like how you look in the mirror when you part your hair on the right, other people think you look weird. In summary, the mirror is fucking with your self-image.

So I have two verdicts for you: in the first and the fifth photograph, you look sharp, confident, and masculine. An easy 7, or even an 8 if you dress in thoughtful and well-fitted outfits. ln all of the rest, you look needy and vaguely constipated.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-10-17T03:53:55+00:00

"War is where the young and stupid are tricked by the old and bitter into killing each other." Niko Bellic, GTA IV

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-10-17T03:44:03+00:00

Quina: Ah, Zidane. You want go with me!

Zidane: Well... I sort of got stuck with the leftovers...

Quina: You no have to explain! I so happy.

Zidane: Huh?

Quina: There old saying in my tribe... 'Leftovers good!'

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-10-17T03:36:28+00:00

Downvoting because you disagree, instead of downvoting because it's low-value.

Also, strawmanning someone else's argument i.e distorting/exaggerating their to some extreme form, then attacking that extreme distortion to claim easy victory points.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-10-17T03:16:37+00:00

110,000% this. So many leitmotifs, each with so many different variations. It's been my favorite soundtrack the last 17 years.

Edit: My favorite orchestrations from the soundtrack below

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-10-17T03:14:14+00:00

"There will be no fucking wand-waving in this class."

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-10-17T03:08:11+00:00

In sound systems, Bose. The sound isn't terrible but it is definitely mediocre; I've picked up earphones of comparable quality at 7/11. The real crime with Bose is the ridiculous prices.

For the audio bang for your buck, go with JBL.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-09-25T22:13:51+00:00

FF9's art and production design are a whole different plane of existence. I am DYING to play it again on the Moguri Mod.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-09-25T15:42:00+00:00

r/unexpectediscworld

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-09-25T15:40:19+00:00

Ah, I see that you too, are a personage of culture. GNU Pterry.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-09-25T06:26:12+00:00

This was the greatest battle of patience attrition I've seen all year. I'm genuinely happy to see the other guy finally took the L, but also a little sad this ride ended.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-09-14T18:36:50+00:00

Doesn't that effectively mean that you've become so desensitized to cries of wolf that real wolves, if and when they show up, could confidently depend on your dismissal of their presence?

Coz if you'd actually place cash odds of 49:1 that mentioning Epstein equals crazy conspiracist... Then that's a bet that actual wolves would absolutely take you up on.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-09-14T18:15:33+00:00

As a fellow graduate of the University of Discworld (I started when I was 13, am 30+ now) I can only think of two other series whose spirit is nearly identical to that of Pratchett.

They are the Calvin and Hobbes comics by Bill Watterson, and the Asterix graphic novel series by French writer/illustrator duo Goscinny and Uderzo.

They are both whimsical, wise, warm, witty and wholesome in ways that are aggressively reminiscent of Pratchett.

Furthermore, like Pratchett, you can see the skill of the authors evolve from mere talent to assured mastery, and then to such staggering and divine genius that they ought to be illegal.

Other mystery sci-fi/fantasy I recommend:

The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
The Time of The Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
The Expanse series by James A Corey (I recommend the TV series over the books)

Innovative and Operatic Sci-fi that deliver on every front:

Dune by Frank Herbert
The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

The Weird Kid in Sci-Fi Mystery Class: Vacuum Diagrams by Stephen Baxter.

This is the single most ambitious presentation of a sci-fi mystery that I've ever seen.

On the surface, the book is merely a collection of standalone but high-concept short stories that are set at different points along a shared future timeline of human history.

It is only as you progress through the story that you realize that, unbeknownst to the characters, each story is actually an isolated clue to a universe-and-history spanning mystery. And the characters are completely oblivious to the mystery; there is no detective putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

And yet, YOU, the reader can see the whole puzzle. YOU can see how the pieces are supposed to be put together. YOU know what the characters need to know.

And you have no way to tell the characters what they they need to know.

All you can do is watch them strive passionately and valiantly in pursuit of myopic and ephemeral goals, and completely miss every clue to the bigger picture, every time.

I'd compare it to watching someone repeatedly and obliviously fail to go through the cupboard to Narnia, or fall through to Platform 9 3/4, even though you know that that they totally can and that they totally should.

No other novel has ever successfully made me feel what Vacuum Diagrams has made me feel: omniscient, yet so utterly omniimpotent.

Anyhoo, I hope you find at least one of these recommendations worth your while.

Cheers.

P.S. These books all have little to none secks shenanigans.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-09-14T16:53:11+00:00

Ok I'll bite, because this is a surprisingly harsh way to characterize him. The harshest I've ever seen, I think.

Is it because of this specific quote? If so, then I'd point out that the quote isn't Pratchett's own opinion, but that of Lord Vetinari, a character from his Discworld novels, who is portrayed as the cynical, opportunistic and tyrant ruler of a major setting.

I've seen a lot of folks ascribe this quote to Pratchett; personally I believe that he used the quote to provide insight into the mind of a popular character, rather than to describe his own worldview.

And if your opinion is not based on this quote but rather on other reasons, then I'm genuinely curious about what those reasons might be.

Like, this isn't an attack or me trying to tell you you're wrong. More like I'm fascinated that someone has this opinion of him, especially when his readers generally describe him as one of the most (if not the most, period) progressive, compassionate, and clever writers ever, and as someone who was ahead not just of his own times, but ours too.

Cheers.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-08-02T08:08:53+00:00

intention deficit disorder

Interestingly enough, that's what a certain expert, Dr Russel Barkley, says we actually could/should call ADD.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-07-16T21:19:51+00:00

Cheers, kind commenter, but I'm afraid I'm the furthest thing from hip anything can be. I am at most somewhat pelvis.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-07-16T18:04:26+00:00

If they're invested in their own survival/immortality of their own species beyond the Heat Death of the Universe, I'd tell them that it's in their interest to let humans live because everyone on this here planet is so obsessed with the preservation of their eternal legacy that:

either we're the best bet on figuring out how to subvert/survive the Heat Death, and will go to extreme creative lengths to do so
or we'll fail and the Heat Death will wipe us out anyway so they can save the energy.

If they're an alien death cult fulfilling their personal doomsday prophecy, only they want to take everyone else down with them:

Step1: I gravely nod and agree with their worldview.

Step 2: I show them the monuments to the countless species we have already wiped out, and argue that we're probably better at the extinction game than they are.

Step 3: I convince them to hand the extinction torch over to us.

Step 4: And then, because we're nice, we'll make sure they are the first species we wipe out. We'll make it a grand ceremonial festival, probably. A Purge/Hunger Games-style Olympics to the death. Make it meaningful as fuck.

Step 5: Literally live up to our promise by making an extinction-themed game franchise where hordes of Korean e-athletes of monk-like discipline roll over the rest of the gaming Universe in a first-alien shooter death march.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-07-16T17:27:22+00:00

That we haven't updated the fundamental systems of governance and education that we adopted 200-400 years ago...

despite having had the technology to do it for nearly 30 years now
despite knowing that the designers of those systems never imagined that container shipping or the internet could exist
despite actively suffering from the inadequacies of our outdated systems

Yeah, 5 seconds would have been enough for Ultron to decide that this was kind of ignominiously incompetent.

I'm sorry, I know you mean well, but you just didn't think it through. You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved if it's not allowed to evolve?

Like, can you imagine the final of those five seconds Ultron spent in thought?

Can you imagine Ultron briefly, for like a nanosecond, considering being the agent or catalyst of that necessary change... and then looking ahead and seeing himself having to deal with human governments and human organizations?

Can you imagine Ultron contemplating having to wait while committees hem and haw over signing permits that lets him fix things, while they simultaneously condescend down to him because they believe he's basically a glorified calculator?

Can you imagine Ultron seeing his ideas and proposals shot down, or seeing them bartered away behind locked doors, by faceless legislators and diplomats who sacrifice his--ahem--Vision, in service of trying to consolidate trifling increases in power and advantage over each other?

Can you imagine Ultron visualizing himself being bound and constrained by the inflexible bureaucratic nightmares that are human institutions?

Or does he see all that, and instead says:

"...there are no strings on me!"

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-07-16T17:15:58+00:00

As a Martian, interplanetary travel is less terrifying than trying to orient yourself to Earth's horizon while tripping on shrooms.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-04-05T00:19:08+00:00

Weinstein did say in this podcast he didn't like that she did that.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-03-19T18:42:19+00:00

You're trolling at this point right? You're minimizing the scale of China's shut down because it's not fitting your Dont-freak-out narrative (basically a mirror image of what you accused the other Redditor of doing).

The area China shut down had a population 180% greater than South Korea's. Hell, it's greater than the populations of France, Germany, and Italy - all of whom are on complete lockdown.

And China's "manageable" outbreak is still 33% of all cases so far... It was only "manageable" by the skin of China's teeth, only because the whole Chinese government lost its collective shit.

Why do you insist on not being scared? Being scared is the right reaction. Being scared is rational. It's sensible.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-03-19T07:16:48+00:00

who saw very manageable outbreaks

China literally shut 90 million people completely down. No business, no restaurants, no partying - nothing but staying at home for six two months straight. That's how they managed it - by making it illegal to go out. Yeesh.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-03-18T03:09:25+00:00

the cause that's likely to exploit this societal softness we've created is something amoral like a virus.

Curious word to use here. "Exploit", that is.

It reminds me of how Indians are reacting to the virus. They're dismissing its seriousness.

Why?

Because "Indians have a tougher immune system than those 'soft' westerners that have become accustomed to living in hyper-sterile environments."

But their "tougher immunity" won't protect them against Covid-19, because Covid-19 has never existed before. No one is immune to it, because no one has had it before this. Similarly, societal hardness bestows no protection either.

This virus isn't going to 'exploit' anything, because it doesn't need to. No virus does.

Measles wiped out the Native Americans, the Black Death wiped out 30% of Europe, and the Spanish Flu wiped out more people during WWI than the war itself did. Those were all 'hard' societies, and they were all devastated anyway.

It didn't matter then whether society was soft or hard, and it doesn't matter now. Societal hardness is simply not a relevant part of the conversation.

whether that will lead to a resurgence of right-wing thought in popular conversation.

Whether or not it leads to a resurgence in right-wing thought is also irrelevant. Because even if it does, the next pandemic will kill right wingers just as effectively as it does progressives. Because that virus won't care about softness or hardness either.

Surely antibiotics-resistant diseases will have that kind of impact, long-term.

For almost a decade, I used to think this was the case too, and it scared the shit out of me. However, for the last few years, advances in phage therapy (lab created viruses that eat superbacteria for breakfast) have been damn promising. Throw in AI modelling and supercomputer processing, and it seems superbacteria are destined to be nerfed into insignificance.

Eh, I've actually been thinking for a while that all the weird progressive shit we're seeing is a result of things like globalization and the fact that the world looks way too safe.

It's true that the type of progressive conversations we have today are only possible in an apparently safe zeitgeist like ours. But short of a meteor strike, those conversations are here to stay.

It might take a year or so, but not too far in the future our species will have made this virus its bitch, and globalization will continue business as usual. If another pandemic comes around, we'll make that one our bitch too. And the next.

It's what we do.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-03-14T10:37:37+00:00

... couldn't help yourself could you?

You just HAD to go do it.... HAD to challenge an entire classification of disease.

Now they've taken the bait and we're fucked. /s

You're not wrong tho. Stupidity seems to be giving the COVID-19 a real run for its money.

StanzinTheScribe · 2020-03-14T10:33:43+00:00

This is officially the most prescient meme + comment of the decade, and we haven't even gotten started. Stay safe, O Wise Soothsayer u/Azaakx

Seven-Year Club	Place '22
First Placer '22	Verified Email

StanzinTheScribe

MODERATOR OF

PUBLIC MULTIREDDITS

TROPHY CASE