If ever I mysteriously disappear, here’s where to find me. If I ever retire (which seems unlikely), I have a destination. Point Nemo.
It’s the point on Earth farthest from any land mass. It sounds delightful.
Also, if ever sunken R’lyeh rises sometime after my vanishing, I’ll be the skeleton found on the slimy rocks of the beach, hagfish writhing in my ribcage and and crabs peeking out through my eyesockets. Just so you know.
This is handy — all those reflexive cliched phrases used by the alt-right, especially that odd phrase, “virtue signaling”, are entertainingly explained.
Except one. The new insult, “spengler”, is mentioned but left undefined. Now I have to make it my life’s quest to clarify spengling.
I like this essay about science fiction’s woman problem — it really hammers home the distorted demographics of the SF community, and on the surface, it seems very odd. This is a genre of literature that emphasizes strange, new, weird perspectives, and we’re supposed to be fans of mind-bending cosmic novelty that the Mundanes and Muggles just don’t get; we tell ourselves that the whole point is to turn the lens of “what if…?” back upon ourselves, and see how people and cultures would change if one little thing were different, if the future were a tiny bit different from the present. And what do we get? Lots of repetition of White Imperialist Men in Space. That’s fine, I enjoy a good heroic space opera myself, but can we also leaven it all with some variety?
I’ve been consciously selecting my light reading lately to avoid the familiar white authors — again, nothing wrong with them — and what started out as something requiring intentional effort quickly turned into a genuinely fun and stimulating pastime. There’s a place for comfort food, but once you’ve been on a diet of mac-and-cheese for a long time, and you start trying new stuff, pretty soon you’re unsatisfied if you aren’t getting sushi or bibimbap or falafel for dinner, and they stop being “exotic” foods and become that really tasty goodness that you crave all the time.
So the latest two books I read: Everfair by Nisi Shawl and Engraved on the Eye by Saladin Ahmed. Fabulous! You like steampunk, Victorian fantasy and SF? Everfair has all that, but in addition, it’s set in the Congo of King Leopold II of Belgium (he’s the villain, obviously, but actually, the whole dang colonial system is the bad guy). Just moving the story out of the usual London setting is great, but having a nightmarishly wicked villain who was actually real, and even worse than the novel portrays him, makes the story seem just a bit more fierce. You like sword and sorcery? Who needs burly grunting Aryan barbarians when you can have aging, overweight Doctor Adoulla Makhslood to admire. I found it gratifying to finally have a hero I can actually physically identify with.
But here’s the deal: if you’re really into imaginative SF, shouldn’t you be avidly seeking out different authors and different ideas all the time? You don’t have to like it all, but jeez, shouldn’t it be a natural phenomenon that all SF readers would be exploring strange new worlds on their bookshelves?
Those two sentences are not at all connected, but I was famished, and this beast looked so plump and succulent, I contemplated having a tasty haunch of Marmota monax. Fricasseed whistlepig. Charbroiled chuckling.
But then it made all kinds of clicky-chitterings at me, and called me “deplorable”, so we just relocated it to a pleasant spot down by the river, instead.
Then we went out for Chinese.
I have never been so flattered in my life. Usually the angry MGTOWs and MRAs just call me a beta cuck, but I’ve now discovered what they really, secretly think of me. Dave Futrelle reports on what MGTOWs say about women: they don’t like sex at all, they don’t want it, they don’t get even a little tingle out of it, with one exception. That is, if their partner is a top 5% male like Chad Thundercock
.
Women are always saying they love sex but in my experience they are completely f**king frigid and really low sex drive unless you are already having sex with them. They never, ever really ACTIVELY pursue or initiate sex with a stranger because they really just don’t care about it, unless its to get something out of a man, like love, affection, dinners, cards, romance.
They are so completely disinterested in sex and stuck up about it , it makes me f**king sick. This is why they can charge such a heavy price for it, because they really don’t want it and really don’t need it.
A top 5% male like Chad Thundercock may have pussy literally thrown at him though. I am not him, so I wouldn’t know.
Since I happen to intimately know a woman with a perfectly normal, healthy sex drive, I have to assume I must be one of those rare studly types who elicits that kind of response. The alternative is that all those pontificators have either never actually interacted with a woman, or perhaps are so repulsive that women’s libidos wilt away in their presence…but that can’t possibly be true. They’re bold, independent, strong men, right?
Of course, it’s also possible that she’s been putting on an act to get glamorous gifts from me. It is her birthday today, you know, so maybe it’s because she knows she’s getting a spectacular present. I’m getting her a dehumidifier for the basement. It’s a very Chad Thundercock sort of gift.
I’ll tell you another secret that we Chads all know, though. She’s not quite 60 years old today. If I had a time machine and could go back to talk to myself when I was 18, when I was dating Mary when she was a young nubile hottie, and my wrinkly grey-bearded self were to tell me that I was going to grow old with her, and that I’d still be with her when she was over 60, my young self would have felt such awesome joy — the same joy I feel now, that we’d be together even in our old age.
Of course, then old me would bring out my phone — that would be dazzling right there — and show young me a photo that would reveal she’s just going to get better and become a mature nubile hottie, and even my shallower impulses would be gratified.
But then, we fortunate Chads are always getting lucky.
But wow, the changes in the latest edition are stunning. This is the description for the standard “Human” player:
Looks like Wizards of the Coast have been completely overrun by SJWs. We’re going to have to start calling them Wizards+.
This is good, if I were to play that game again, there’d be fewer turdlumps wrecking the session.
I remember asking my parents to let me stay up late on a school night to watch Star Trek, when it first came out (Thursday at 10pm? What What rat-buggering monkey troll at CBS planned that bit of scheduling?). Now I am told that that was 50 years ago. Exactly 50 years ago today.
That’s impossible. I’d remember 50 years passing by. I’d feel different than that 9 year old boy right now, and I’m sure all of you would agree that I’m just a little kid. With a beard, sure, but still the same.
I consider this to be concrete evidence of a totally mysterious physical phenomenon, and I demand immediate research into this strange time warp, before I take a step to the left and become further unstuck in time, or fall further back into the future.
The for-profit vocational education institution has been completely shut down, casting 45,000 students abruptly adrift. It wasn’t quite instantaneous: everyone should have been able to see it coming. First they were told that federal financial aid could no longer apply to ITT; then California told them they could no longer accept any new students.
Since then, ITT Technical Institute posted a new landing page on its website that states, “We are not enrolling new students.” The website also details that credits earned by current students are “unlikely to transfer.”
You might wonder why this happened. Simple answer: total accreditation meltdown.
In blocking new students from enrolling, the Education Department cited the actions of ITT’s accreditor, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, which determined that ITT “is not in compliance and is unlikely to become in compliance with [ACICS] accreditation criteria.” According to the department, ACICS questioned ITT’s compliance with standards such as financial stability, management, record keeping, admissions, recruitment standards, retention, job placement and institutional integrity, in an Aug. 17 letter sent to the department.
I feel a lot of sympathy for the students who were bilked out of their money at this place, and I would hope that any debt they accumulated their would be wiped clean (although, this is America, so it probably won’t). But I’d also say to any student enrolled in a for-profit college…get out while you can. You are being robbed, and the writing is on the wall.
Just curious — I ran across this article from back in March that rips into Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Stephen Hawking for their ignorant comments about philosophy. I’d like to think better of all three of them. Does anyone know if any of them made any responses to their numerous philosophical critics? Is there any sign that they’ve learned from the criticism?
In yet another misstep by a Trump proxy, Marco Gutierrez from Latinos for Trump made the announcement that will annihilate the Trump campaign. Or, at least, give everyone on the internet a field day.
We must defeat Trump. For great justice, and now for tacos for everyone!
