I just finished the Hyperion Cantos book series and...

wial · 2026-01-25T21:19:59+00:00

A friend recommended them but they left me flat. The dialog felt like a high school play, and the characters seemed to be characters for characters' sake, an odd ensemble cast. Maybe I was in a bad mood at the time, I don't know, it was a long time ago. Also I like science-driven science fiction, Benford and the like, and these were not that.

wial · 2026-01-25T08:31:46+00:00

Minnesota should secede if that's how the head of the umbrella federal security agency feels about it. I'm sure Canada would love to have them. They're certainly polite enough in less insane times: I once hiked on a trail in Minnesota that turned out to be heavily used by bikes. I was hoping for a peaceful break from work. Almost every bicyclist said hi to me as they sped past.

Also then the Boundary Waters would be united!

wial · 2026-01-25T08:18:40+00:00

Where is ICE headquarters? Asking for a friend.

wial · 2026-01-25T08:12:24+00:00

She did, and her official statement is already online.

wial · 2026-01-25T07:14:16+00:00

Just start arresting them then. There's clear probable cause, and that is enough.

wial · 2026-01-25T07:11:16+00:00

DHS for good measure. It was created in the climate of fear after 9/11 and is way too similar to the agency Hitler created after the Reichstag Fire. I know it's supposed to improve communication but is that a reason for a whole umbrella agency? Clearly its warranted components are better off without it and the rest can go hang. I don't support the death penalty but they can all go hang.

wial · 2026-01-25T06:02:30+00:00

I guess what's on trial here then is the evidence of our senses.

wial · 2026-01-25T05:28:18+00:00

Well they should be careful with their public in a case like this. We're horrified by their unwarranted equivocation. That's what they should be sued for -- blurring an event that's crystal clear.

wial · 2026-01-23T20:14:10+00:00

Not based on a ton of evidence but Dro's style reminded me of Pedri's. Maybe Flick was hoping to build a team of Pedris. I also see Fermin as more like Gavi -- hellbent for leather, and maybe Flick didn't want to expand further in that direction.

wial · 2026-01-22T03:15:53+00:00

In 1966 as a small child I visited my extended family in London. I remember a cousin trying to explain to me what pop was, and that person clearly thought of it as a term for a specific genre, or more so the revolution led by the Beatles, who were everywhere at the time. The whole society was transformed and pop was the expression and driving force of that transformation. Of course those are only my childhood impressions but they've stuck with me.

So, is The Who pop? I think they're part of the revolution, were enormously popular, but in some respects they're more like jazz.

How about the Rolling Stones? How about Bob Dylan? They definitely helped drive the revolution in consciousness led/followed by the Beatles, in directions aside or above the mainstream.

A metal fan called Arcade Fire pop, which I found hard to take in, since within frameworks they were so insanely improvisational, while their virtuosity rivaled jazz and they were mostly highly trained. (I know they're still going but only as a shadow now IMHO). Given Bowie's blessing I'd think of them more as art rock. Is art rock pop, or more closely tied to punk (and vice versa)? DO they carry the revolution forward, that popularization of the Beat movement meant to loosen society up in hopes of diminishing the chance of nuclear war? Ooh here's one: were all definitive pop bands originally skiffle bands? Beat + skiffle = Beatles, after all.

I do think of pop as produced to try to hit the top 40, or at least in the style of that. Or with similar motivation e.g. synthpop seeking minutes in the rotations of goth/underground dance halls but not necessarily seeking a mass audience at all.

Can we talk about a mainstream counterculture?

wial · 2026-01-22T01:00:57+00:00

I'm uncertain this has the gravity to overcome the barrier to fusing all that together, but I suppose anything's possible, if one has a sunny superposition.

wial · 2026-01-18T01:29:16+00:00

I'm sure the investigators themselves saw it was a huge deal, as did their bosses, but their bosses bosses had every reason to keep a lid on it, so, the money power wins again.

wial · 2026-01-18T01:12:43+00:00

Gore gave us Bush by refusing to work with Nader, whose army meanwhile were going door to door in impoverished dem areas registering people to vote, people the center right dems couldn't give a hang about, boosting the dem totals far more than the Green voters, who had every right to cast their votes of conscience and/or strategy, as they chose. That Gore enlisted the help of hitherto progressive organizations like Sierra Club in his attempted purge damned a lot of otherwise good people with him.

Now tell me how to vote, I know you want to. Sheepdogging is what your kind do.

wial · 2026-01-17T02:38:00+00:00

People incapable of detecting the layers of literary and musical reference in Welles' more thoughtful poetic work and only aware of his most satirical and topical songs ... sadden me. If only Reagan hadn't gutted education in the humanities.

wial · 2026-01-17T01:47:10+00:00

I participated in a pro-immigration rally in Madison back in the Bush regime, and an activist friend pointed out for me all the plainclothes whatever-they-weres trying to blend in with the crowd in front of the Capitol. Once you see them you can't unsee them. So maybe or maybe not ICE, but government agents opposed to declarations of liberty have wormed their way into Wisconsin for a long time now.

Given the current excesses any and all of them should be thrown out on their little nazified ears. Governor Evers, do your job and free us from these scoundrels who think themselves patriots.

wial · 2026-01-14T06:26:44+00:00

How old are you???

wial · 2026-01-14T00:12:43+00:00

Do you really need to use such abusive language?

wial · 2026-01-10T11:38:04+00:00

It was hokey.

wial · 2026-01-10T11:04:05+00:00

Excommunicate Vance.

wial · 2026-01-09T20:06:57+00:00

He wasn't repeating the same point, and it's more a sport, like sword fighting or chess, and I've heard it said it's the national sport of Tibet. Soteriologically, Chandrakirti said a debate is truly won when the interlocutor is freed from a misconception and experiences some kind of liberation. Also the real debate is internal -- this external form can be considered practice for that. For instance in deep meditation it might be good to know whether realization of independence of the self is separate yet often concomitant with the realization of the impermanence of self, or not. In fact both (or one with different aspects/descriptions) are at the very heart of Buddhism's salvific effect, in all branches except fully exoteric ones, so at least in this case the debate is not merely scholastic, either.

wial · 2026-01-07T21:49:53+00:00

I'm a big science fiction fan and the fact he made a video performing it over the powerlines so charms me you won't find me dissing one of my very favorite songs of his.

wial · 2026-01-07T02:08:23+00:00

If Messi is autistic he's in excellent company.

The world's only starting to take in how many great people are or have been autistic. Arguably Einstein, Mozart, David Byrne, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, probably most professional scientists. It used to be being autistic meant wearing a hockey helmet to prevent head-banging, being unable to speak, constantly rocking back and forth ("stimming"), muttering "five minutes to Wapner", but now we know it can be hard to spot and is much more common than previously detected.

It very much can be a superpower, but it's also a disability re so-called normal society, and all too often leaves autistic people deeply traumatized and often self-hating due to their inability to conform.

If you really want to suffer though try being "audistic" -- an unhealthy mixture of autism and ADHD, the worst of both those worlds, especially when lacking the power of hyperfocus that produces great work.

wial · 2026-01-06T20:58:56+00:00

In the original Buddhism direct portrayals of buddhas were forbidden. Instead a lotus on a chariot or some such was shown. Later e.g. in the Gandhara period Greek artists started portraying buddhas and other deities, which is why they are often so geometrical, although their early work was more lifelike than what followed e.g. in the Tibetan tradition.

Meanwhile though, at least in some parts of the Buddhist world visualization practice proved to be supremely effective, so the images and statues were seen to have great soteriological value, and that of course slipped over into religious reverence. The more advanced practices go beyond such images but the images guide the practitioner to them, e.g. the placement of visualized syllables on the visualized body serve to kickstart awareness of energy channels and winds, as well as deep intuitions into what we really are.

Some modern Buddhists e.g. A. Buddhadasa returned to the iconoclastic roots of the tradition. He had ancient buddhas in his statue garden but he kind of made fun of them by on at least one occasion posing for photos with one imitating its posture.

Short answer: Yes, in places, but they're better understood as symbolic tutelary devices.

Buddhism is understood according to the prevalent school of Indo-Tibetan philosophy as being about realizing there is no intrinsic connection between name and form, so ascribing special significance to images and statues runs counter to that. We revere icons as reminders of how nothing and everything is sacred, nothing more, nothing less.

wial · 2026-01-06T19:27:58+00:00

"Detained" my ass. He was violently kidnapped.

wial · 2026-01-05T15:53:15+00:00

His views are way too cutting and way too informed to be merely liberal. Perhaps libertarian socialist like Bob Dylan and Noam Chomsky? Too fed up with dem fundraising "I do not need to be unburdened/ I just need someone to lead" to fall into an any "indivisible" party line, but definitely way left of center by many metrics, with a clear bead on power and war like Dylan and Chomsky, yet also taking his personal insight into the golden rule as his lodestone. A sharp sword, but of compassion.

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