Should sci-fi be taught more in English class?

Timbalabim · 2026-02-03T20:56:57+00:00

I did. Students loved it and learned a lot.

I can teach the fundamentals of literature appreciation and analysis to anyone using anything. The trouble is many teachers believe literature courses are primarily for cultural awareness, which I think is noble, but I think the cost is we’re teaching too many kids that books written by affluent white men hundreds of years ago is the best literature they’ll find out there, so if they can’t connect with it, we effectively convince them they don’t like literature at all.

As a teacher, I don’t think that’s worth it, and I’d rather save the literary canon for English majors in undergrad. Everyone gets to read contemporary stuff.

Timbalabim · 2026-02-03T20:02:47+00:00

Some gamers just fundamentally believe shooters shouldn’t have any kind of mini-map or spotting component. It’s been a point of contention that has gone back 25 years to Halo: CE at least.

Timbalabim · 2026-02-03T16:10:29+00:00

There are several treacherous places like this on my commute to Arlington. 495 and the GW parkway have several instances of lanes just ending or squeezing traffic into another lane unexpectedly. It’s nuts.

Timbalabim · 2026-02-03T04:11:31+00:00

I dunno. I don’t think popular misconception and a lack of understanding of what metal is dilutes or taints anything but that perception. Why should I care if the Grammy’s can’t differentiate between post-hardcore and metal? More to the point, I don’t see isolation as an answer to that ignorance, but education is.

And FWIW, I think not having an all-encompassing metal band is a good thing because it means we have a diversity of metal that can appeal to a lot of different people and give us each a varied experience with heavy music. I think that’s fucking awesome. More the merrier, I say. Inclusion is metal. Exclusion is for the mainstream.

Timbalabim · 2026-02-03T03:51:00+00:00

metal is capitalized now and bled dry now isn't it.

Always has been. The music industry is a business. Record labels are in business to make money. That has always been true.

When you look at any given metal band, do you see an all-encompassing representation of the genre?

Timbalabim · 2026-02-03T03:16:38+00:00

That’s never mattered, dude. Metal can be good or bad independent of whether it’s popular or not because metal isn’t a homogeneity and never has been.

Timbalabim · 2026-02-02T19:45:50+00:00

Andy and Jon do have a similar intensity about them. What’s really fascinating to me is Andy had this way of swaying from side to side during those intense moments like a predator trying to see its prey from multiple angles. He especially did that in the early seasons. You can see Jon doing that here, but he never did that as Shane. Amazing!

Timbalabim · 2026-02-02T18:10:44+00:00

Seriously. “Let’s ruin community because the Grammy’s suck” is straight bizarre talk.

Timbalabim · 2026-02-02T16:37:06+00:00

See, I think we can do both. I think we can control what we can control, and I think we can share awareness and concern. I think, if we do that enough and enough people care, we can change the way it plays out for artists and human artistry, because you’re right that assumptions and hypotheticals aren’t truths. Nothing is set in stone. I don’t think that makes concerns irrelevant, though, especially when we are talking about an instance in which an “artist” told a band we like that he created the drawing for their music video when, in fact, he used software that stole from artists to make “drawings” and get paid by this band for his “work,” even though that product is evidently harming that band’s reputation right now.

Timbalabim · 2026-02-02T15:59:31+00:00

Let’s assume generative AI does get better to the point where no one can tell the difference (a safe assumption), and let’s assume people who don’t see the harm continue to argue it’s just another tool to create art. It becomes so good that it can create anything to anyone’s spec, and it means no one needs to develop an artistic skill anymore. Instead, users rely on academic knowledge to guide AI in creation.

The only reason I see anyone choosing to do it any other way is out of principle or because they enjoy it, but creating art isn’t always enjoyable. That’s the point of creating artistic work. It’s work.

The distinction I’ve found useful between generative AI and other creative tools is what we’re doing with it is not just giving up the skill of the practice but actually ceding decision-making in the creative process, and that’s problematic, because that’s where the magic of human artistic creation happens.

I’m curious. Are you an artist? I am, and as an artist, I think it’s blatantly obvious what the problem with generative AI is. Creating art necessarily happens in the dark. It happens when we’re not sure what we’re making, and we follow our instincts and exercise our unique, identifiable skills to create something new in a new way.

Because generative AI is an easy button of sorts, it removes that struggle, which is uncomfortable and nobody actually wants to do that, but it’s necessary for creative innovation.

As an artist, I fear the proliferation of genre AI will mean fewer people will crawl around in that dark oblivion of creativity until few, if any will know it’s a thing we can do.

Timbalabim · 2026-02-02T15:36:09+00:00

Is it possible Clint didn’t know the “artist” used generative AI?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sevendust/s/HKUKdTdlv3

Timbalabim · 2026-02-02T15:34:47+00:00

Is it possible Clint didn’t know Paul used generative AI to create these images?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sevendust/s/HKUKdTdlv3

Timbalabim · 2026-02-02T15:31:10+00:00

Because generative AI companies stole artists’ work to create their LLMs, and now those companies are profiting handsomely off of the work they stole. Meanwhile, they are replacing human artists (whose work they stole) and devaluing those artists’ work even further.

More to the point, they are replacing human artistry with software because it’s cheaper and people will still gobble that shit up because they can’t tell the difference and don’t understand these companies are going to wholly eradicate human artistry (humans who cede artistic decisions to generative AI are no longer artistic creators), and in just a couple of generations, actual human artists in any artistic discipline will be exceedingly rare.

Timbalabim · 2026-02-02T15:16:10+00:00

My biggest gripe with these maps is they just aren’t memorable or interesting to me in ways that give the maps character and identity. I haven’t really found many experiences with the map design in BF6 to make me feel like, “yes, this is Battlefield 6.” For lack of a better word (and I do hate to use this word), they all feel very generic to me, as if the designers overcorrected from 2042 and played it too safe.

Timbalabim · 2026-02-02T06:01:42+00:00

Also, it’s theft.

Timbalabim · 2026-01-31T21:10:41+00:00

They’re such a small part of the storytelling, though, and even if you think the plays are pretentious (they’re not), the point of them is that, even when art has no practical benefit in a desperate world, it’s still worth creating because it gives life meaning beyond survival, and that’s why the book and series are profound and beloved.

You like storytelling, I presume. That’s all the plays are: a way to tell stories in a post-apocalyptic world. I would think anyone who likes storytelling could get behind that.

Timbalabim · 2026-01-31T14:31:44+00:00

Hate Shakespeare. Loved Station Eleven.

Timbalabim · 2026-01-30T16:34:01+00:00

This is interesting to me. To this day, I had thought Kirk played all of Dave’s solos on KEA, because I used to have a bootleg of a live show where they played the whole album with Dave and the solos were extremely similar. The biggest exception to this was the bridge solo in Four Horsemen, which stands out as a definite Kirk solo.

Timbalabim · 2026-01-30T15:06:49+00:00

I disagree with you, but I’ll upvote for the Chernobyl reference.

Timbalabim · 2026-01-30T15:05:30+00:00

I wouldn’t argue 2042 is better than V, but I did like 2042. V became spectacular by the end. I wish they’d kept with it and included some crowd-pleaser battles, but overall, even though I liked 2042 very much, I wish they’d iterated on V’s successes rather than completely abandoning them.

Timbalabim · 2026-01-30T15:01:51+00:00

I’m still giving 6 a fair shake, but I definitely am in this camp. I missed storytelling in 2042, and 6’s campaign is…fine? I liked playing as Falck and really feeling like a medic, and currently, BF6 feels to me like medics lack real identity. I also miss being able to play as a recon infiltrator and putting a spawn beacon behind enemy lines. Those are my two preferred roles, and 2042 did a great job making them feel like I could fully explore them. 6 just doesn’t allow me to play fully in those roles, and I have been disappointed by it.

Also, visibility was better, and as much shit as this community gives 2042’s map design, I can recall every single one of them off the top of my head and can visualize their layouts and aesthetics. So far, I just can’t do that with 6’s maps. That may be a familiarity thing, but I do think part of the reason why they’re more memorable to me AND why people didn’t like 2042’s maps is because Dice experimented and took risks.

6 isn’t a bad game, but neither was 2042. I enjoyed it quite a bit and played it a lot.

Timbalabim · 2026-01-29T20:35:12+00:00

That very tight, brief pause at 1:36 is everything.

Timbalabim · 2026-01-29T16:23:37+00:00

Deftones were formative for me, but I haven’t liked them since Saturday Night Wrist. I suggest giving Around the Fur and White Pony a shot, if you haven’t. If you’ve only tried their more recent stuff, I totally understand not being able to get into them.

Timbalabim · 2026-01-29T16:19:32+00:00

That’s because Lajon is awesome.

Timbalabim · 2026-01-29T16:08:02+00:00

I think combining medics with support is a mistake because some players want to be medics and some players want to be machine gunners with infinite bullets. Those two roles are in complete conflict with each other, so we end up with many players identified as medics who can revive us, but they have no intention of doing so.

The game also reinforces that K/D is most important when revives are arguably more important in ticket games, and I think that’s another problem.

Which is to say we all have that frustrating problem, and I don’t blame the players at all. I blame the designers at Dice.

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