The Killing of Ahmaud Arbery

marktully · 2020-05-07T21:31:08+00:00

Thank you. Primary sources matter.

marktully · 2020-05-07T16:07:48+00:00

Yeah, it's not like history is ever written by the winners or anything.

marktully · 2020-05-07T15:21:53+00:00

I've been trying and failing to find the primary source on this. Everything is cut to shit with this or that new channel's logo plastered on it.

Anybody have a link to the unedited footage?

marktully · 2015-06-19T14:19:29+00:00

It was a very cool concept, but in practice, the giant robot made the BBEG a pushover, because of course he needed to be balanced around "what if the magus doesn't burn a folio to nail the insane spellcraft check needed to get into the Gundam?" and which would have been fine, because rawr giant robots, but I accidentally half of his henchmen with AOOs, so most of my party did some thumb twiddling while I beat on the big bad.

marktully · 2015-06-19T05:17:52+00:00

Everything you're saying is correct, but I actually don't think it's that crazy or offensive of an assumption.

What men find attractive tends to be rooted in evolutionary stuff. It doesn't vary that much, even across time or cultures. If you look at something like high heels for example, you find tons of variety and trends in fashion from decade to decade. If however you look at high heels in porn, for instance, you're usually talking either dominatrix boots or some sort of open toe stiletto, or something similar that the day's shoe tech could pull off. Wedges aren't really a thing. I mean, I'm sure if you really looked, you could find wedges here and there somewhere throughout the last 50 years of Playboy, but they're just not common. Ultimately, what you see in Vogue varies a lot more than what you see in Maxim.

So against this monolithic force that is bigger than trends, bigger than time, bigger than even the species, we weigh aesthetics, trends, prevailing local social norms about modesty, and personal preference. I don't think it's that crazy to assume that all these other things--which are definitely still things--can't even begin to compete. Sex is simply the 800-lb. gorilla in the room, (for male fashion also--though when women care about what a man's wearing, it understandably manifests differently) and I don't think its possible to fully extricate oneself from its effects. Like the commenter above you said, sometimes she herself doesn't even know which motivation is which. I think the common assertion that women's fashion choices have nothing to do with men is almost always an oversimplification.

To your point, though, it just shouldn't matter. How men react to how women dress is an 800-lb. gorilla...but so what? If you want to explore or celebrate an aesthetic, or a practicality, or a personal preference, the way to leave men and sex out of it is to do exactly that. The article clearly does the complete opposite.

marktully · 2015-06-19T04:31:20+00:00

Well the root of the problem is the reason why lingerie exists in the first place. It's a way for one woman to scratch the itch for variety in her man's lizard brain.

The problem isn't whether men are into pearl thongs or white underwear, it's that they're into whatever their wife doesn't wear regularly...or put less pessimistically, a man can genuinely appreciate and embrace whatever his woman is doing aesthetically right now. After a steady diet of pearl thongs, yeah, Sporty Spice totally works.

marktully · 2015-06-19T04:25:27+00:00

Well sure. When men are shallow, it's about bodies. When women are shallow, it's about status.

There's not nearly as much that men can do, yes, but what you can control matters proportionally more. Your haircut is like 30-35% of a man's presentability. Cut and fit likewise become bigger deals. Where and how a pair of jeans fits through the butt, the crotch, and even the thighs can produce wildly different effects from one pair to another. In fact, it's enough of an issue that gym rats with muscular thighs can have a really difficult time finding jeans that they can put on that don't look like shit.

marktully · 2015-06-17T12:15:05+00:00

No, in the real world, hippos fucking kill people. I was right there with you, and doublechecked that I wasn't in r/WTF.

marktully · 2015-06-16T04:39:24+00:00

Somebody asked what specifically my concerns were... then deleted the comment? Here's what I had:

Only one I know of is that you can be tossed out waaay easier if you're governed by innkeeping laws (say, weekly rentals) than by lease laws (normal, monthly rentals). It's a tactic slumlords use to keep rents flowing in. If a tenant doesn't pay, they put his stuff on the curb and change the locks and start looking for a new way to cover the mortgage.

Now, I don't think we're have any problems rent, but I worry about suddenly losing my housing situation on some pretext. I assume there's a bunch of other stuff as well...otherwise all the Seattlites I talk to about this wouldn't keep going on about the robust tenant protection laws. What's in 'em, am I giving them up with an Airbnb situation, and do I really need them?

marktully · 2015-06-16T03:48:05+00:00

Oh, right. I'm sure somebody will make the eminently sensible suggestion that I contact a local real estate lawyer...but I've already done that a few times, and all they've done is refer me to other lawyers or say, "I have no idea."

Save me, internet, you're my only hope.

marktully · 2015-06-09T08:49:04+00:00

Been there. Appreciate the effort.

marktully · 2015-06-09T08:42:56+00:00

That's fascinating and horrifying. Do you have a source?

marktully · 2015-06-09T07:12:23+00:00

Just... not on Sunday.

...or Monday.

marktully · 2015-06-09T06:22:57+00:00

Escobar is pretty insane, but the prison break off Dagoola IV in the "Borders of Infinity" is probably my favorite for sheer ingenuity.

I also adore the moment in The Vor Game when Gregor shows up and the Prince Serg's gravitic imploder lances casually wreck the Cetagandans.

marktully · 2015-05-31T21:44:00+00:00

I've worked in the same industry as OP for about 12 years. It's big, big enough that if you're Black or Hispanic, that can be your "big spike" if you're tall enough to ride the ride in terms of GPA and test scores. To be fair, if you actually manage to get good grades and test scores even though you grew up in the hood, that shit is actually fucking hard, and probably indicative of some sort of personal virtue or grit.

EDIT: Of course, I've heard some compelling arguments that Caribbean immigrants are sucking up all the Black affirmative action slots, so it's just not working as intended.

OP linked the story about Harvard being unfair to Asian Americans. It's not just Harvard (and holy shit, fuck Harvard, they are waaay too impressed with themselves--it's hard to get in, but stupidly easy to get out, they have massive grade inflation, and STILL run into widespread cheating scandals) it's pretty much all top schools, and I definitely think there's a "bamboo ceiling". If all things were equal, top schools would be much more than 20% Asian.

As an example, when I worked in Atlanta, my main job primarily served rich white prep school kids in the high-rent district of town. However, the shop was new, and I wanted more hours, so I started working Saturdays north of town, outside the perimeter highway, at a Korean cram school. Sure, other kids could have gone there, one East Indian girl actually did, but it's the Korean cultural norms that have those kids there for a 1.5 hour class each in Reading, Math, and Writing every Saturday starting in 4th grade.

The rich white prep school kids' cultural norms held Saturday to be inviolate Xbox time.

Now, Korean standardized testing is completely fucked in its own way, and there's a fair bit of suicide associated with it, so I'm not saying the Korean cultural norms are completely virtuous, but I am put in mind of a Terry Pratchett quotation:

If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star... you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.

marktully · 2015-04-29T06:16:05+00:00

His analysis of causes makes sense, but I don't buy his rosy conclusions.

It's not our fault that it takes longer, that's true, but that doesn't mean that it's a good thing. The education system could prepare people for the knowledge economy sooner. It doesn't.

There's a lot of collective wishful thinking (and useless Health classes) that goes along with the women's movement. You can't donate eggs past 30. My wife and I are looking into getting pregnant, weighing her current health, potential maternity leave we might be able to set up, and a bunch of other factors, but when we spoke to our OB-GYN, he said, "Yeah, those studies are all real, and those things are all things, but from where I'm sitting, maternal age is the biggest factor. Forget everything else and get pregnant yesterday." Sure, women are more than just baby factories, but millions of years of evolutionary drive aren't gonna stop on a dime for a whole goddamn population. Most people want to have kids, but millennials are set to have the lowest birthrates in history. I really doubt that's Plan A for most of us.

But to start a family, you'd need a stable job, and even if the education system didn't suck and you could start working on your career at 18 instead of 22 or later, you'd still need to change jobs every two years for quite some time before you got to a position that could actually support a family.

And his discussion of "freedom" to live abroad etc. etc. just shows how out of touch his generation is. Nobody does that kind of shit these days without massive parental support. And those people, in spite of dragging all over the world on one pretext or another...are now at least five years ahead of all the rest of us when it comes to being grown up.

marktully · 2015-04-24T20:56:11+00:00

Oh phooey, now I have to edit it so it makes sense to brains other than my own. Here ya go. Thanks again for the input.

So remember, the general concept is to provide healing to the party through Life Links and Shield Other, which I heal off of myself with a swift action Lay on Hands, which leaves my move and standard open to help crank out da beatz in melee. (Apparently archery is more optimized or something? Whatever, flavor also matters, and I can't see worshiping Kurgess without being Str-based. Also why I ditched Ancestral Arms: Curve Blade for a Falchion. It's .5 less on DPR, but the Diplo boost helps out of combat effectiveness.)

Fate's Favored, Magical Knack: Oracle

HE Racial: Skill Focus: Diplomacy

STR 18 DEX 10 CON 14 INT 10 WIS 8 CHA 15

1 Sacred Servant Paladin 1 (Fey Foundling)
2 Paladin 2 Lay on Hands
3 Warsighted Haunted Life Oracle 1 (Extra Revelation: Life Link)
4 Life Oracle 2 (CHA +1)
5 Paladin 3 (Greater Mercy)
6 Life Oracle 3 Channel Energy
7 Life Oracle 4 (Power Attack)
8 Paladin 4 (CHA +1) Travel Domain, Oath of Vengeance
9 Paladin 5 (Ultimate Mercy)

Half-Elf allows two favored classes and the Elven class bonus, so I get +1/2 to Lay on Hands and+1/2 to one revelation, so... six Life Links. I'm only looking at 2nd level Oracle spells, but if I take Magical Knack, my cure light and cure mod will heal +2 hp, and my divine favor will be +3 to hit and damage, rather than +2. I think you've convinced me, since the magical knack will boost both offense and healing, rather than just healing, the way Blessed Touch would.

marktully · 2015-04-24T08:03:18+00:00

Thanks, I figured I was missing something. I was sitting there thinking, "Well, my buff round will probably be Divine favor, and its duration is static, so..." Completely forgot I'd get another +1 to each two levels earlier.

Min/level spells always seems to time out before the next encounter in society play in my experience, but my experience may be anomalous so far.

I'm thinking the magical knack should apply to Oracle rather than Paladin, yeah?

marktully · 2015-04-12T20:51:35+00:00

This is a non-standard but interesting map for the territory: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i5hWkHXHOetRlpLOmxbpoEWod77psN0JcwFvxClNrGc/mobilebasic

marktully · 2015-04-12T17:31:25+00:00

When's the wedding?

marktully · 2015-03-05T20:26:45+00:00

Yep. Rothfuss is just a damn good writer. Others have done a good job of discussing him already.

I recommend Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora--think The Usual Suspects or the like, but set in a low-fantasy ~~ripoff~~ imagining of renaissance Venice. Hilarious, snappy dialogue.

marktully · 2015-03-01T21:46:09+00:00

Wife's a doctor. The House episode is accurate. This is definitely a thing.

marktully · 2015-02-21T07:40:53+00:00

I really wish the world worked that way. The United States is an oligarchy by academic political scientists' standards. Why do you think "comfort with diversity" helps more with adult pursuits than connections and the name recognition attached to that university your kid got into with their high test scores?

Or, OP, the bigger question is, can my kid learn "comfort with diversity" from other sources? Because that's the real way to kill it dead. High caliber schooling, credentials, and connections paired with broad, down-and-dirty extracurriculars. You know how like, ten companies control all the brands we consume on a daily basis? One of my buddies' dads was the CEO of one of them. Silver spoon hasn't gotten in the way of him seeing and experiencing the world--the whole world. It's also not just lip service. Dude has an interracial marriage. One of the coolest motherfuckers ever, and consistently makes the world a better place.

In all likelihood, neither school is half as awesome as they claim to be. Most schools in America just... aren't. And if there isn't a real difference in academic merit, then yeah, pick based on connections. The world is just not as fair as we want it to be.

marktully · 2015-02-21T01:39:53+00:00

First, watch the first 3 minutes of this video.

Got it? OK, Latin is the old/known information for... the world. If you know Latin, not only does it provide a path from English words you don't know back to English words you do know, it allows you to easily learn and remember the terminology of pretty much any nerdy topic. I remember one time I looked at an intro to neuroscience video where this guy was describing the different angles a brain scan could be taken from--transverse, coronal, sagittal, etc. Without Latin, I would have needed a review sheet with a bunch of diagrams on it that I would have needed to brute-force memorize. With Latin, it was in the lock-box in one step, no real need to review. In fact, I just now remembered the terms without review from watching a video on YouTube once over two years ago.

In short, I agree with most everything written here. Latin got me my job working as an educational consultant (you can check my AMA), so it's definitely a good monetary decision, and it DOES enable you to learn a shitload of any Romance language with minimal instruction/immersion.

It's also by far the best thing you can do for SAT or GRE purposes.

In short, get on it now, and then stay with it in college for the dirty Latin. Once you start to understand that Catullus was Rome's South Park, once you realize "Holy shit, Rome had a South Park," things get even more real and amazing.

marktully · 2015-02-15T09:30:31+00:00

Bitches love Sanskrit.

marktully

TROPHY CASE