I was fortunate to grow up almost completely irreligious; I’ve never felt a need to replace some “lost” faith or to seek my meaning in the gift of the gods. Reading a lot of history as a kid teaches you that the gods elevate and destroy everyone more or less randomly. Epicurus was right – if they exist, their affairs are complex and elevated enough that they’re more or less irrelevant to us.
The origin of the expression “walking back the cat” is lost in the early cold war, but it refers to the process of decompiling and recompiling intelligence after a breach, usually caused by a mole.
This is cool stuff: (Via Atlas Obscura) dynamically creating fantastical maps of places that never existed. I remember creating maps when I was doing D&D worlds; it’s harder than you’d expect, if you’re trying to make something that looks semi-realistic.
I’m not fond of the “Putin is a chessmaster” meme.
I am, however, willing to say he’s nobody to piss off; it’s just not a good idea to mess with someone whose idea of subtle revenge is to poison an enemy with Polonium-209. Putin doesn’t just say “fuck you” – he says “fuck you” and he means it.
This one is eerily similar to the one on Orly airport. To the point where I had to do a double-take on the news, and then a triple-take, to make sure the facts were somewhat clear. [stderr]
The idea that you can tell things about a person from their appearance underlies the entire point of dressing up, wearing make-up, and being concerned with our appearance. There are probably some things you might be able to assume from a person’s looks, but it’s still going to be pretty unreliable: you can’t tell someone’s a terrorist because they “look muslim” because “looking muslim” is a vague concept to begin with.
What about people who look like criminals?
In a humorous piece in the New Yorker, Andy Borowitz [ny] has Jared “The Kettle” Kushner dissing Kim “The Pot” Jong Un for being inexperienced at leadership and implying that he got his job through nepotism. It’s a funny piece, because the underlying point is important and interesting.
Weed never did much for me. The first time I smoked it, I was watching Cosby, Himself and laughed so hard I think I separated a rib. Subsequent times, I just immediately head for the couch and go to sleep. If I need to sleep, I’ll just read a book on ethics.
This is somewhat reminiscent of Russell Cameron’s work [stderr] and it gives me a similar delicious frisson of discomfort.
“WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, TO PLAY US OUT!?!?!! WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!?”