These are my feelings exactly.

Artists who don’t want their work shared won’t be successful artists for long. People are still trying to return the world to 1970. Even with the depradations of the copyright industry and increasing censorship by Twitter, Facebook, et. al., the world is never going back to that time.

By the way, this site’s text and other works (mostly photos) that I produce and post here all have an “I don’t give a shit” copyright. Which means that you can do whatever you want with it. I don’t care if you give me credit, link back to me, sell one of my photos for a million dollars (but if you do, let me know how you pulled that off) or print my words on the side of a pony.

Do what you like. People will anyway, so why fight it?

But if you do something really amusing with anything of mine, at least try to let me know so I can laugh along (even if it’s making fun of me).

When you overclock a person, this results. And it’s pretty awesome.

People like this who advocate for open borders would probably be sorely displeased with the results, and those former supporters like him with the financial resources would quickly migrate to countries who didn’t self-destroy with such policies.

As a commenter noted:

There may be other examples, but they must be few and unusual, precisely because no state that is strong enough to control its borders has ever permitted the kind of immigration experiment you propose.

Anyway, talk of “open borders” is just signalling — it’s to demonstrate your open-mindedness, supposed empathy and cultural sensitivity. As noted in the comment above, no nation with the capability to control its own borders would allow such a thing to occur because of the absolute chaos it would cause.

In other words, “open borders” is supported by people on whom it’d have little to no impact either through their own mobility due to affluence or because supporting it currently has no cost, only benefit for signalling purposes.”Open borders” is one of those things that people of the right mindset (that is, neoliberals who believe they are progressives) like until they are forced to try it.

All of the faux-concern about cultural appropriation is a complete waste of time as that’s simply fighting against how culture works and always will.

Yet simply to point out instances of appropriation in the assumption that the process is by its nature corrosive seems to me a counterproductive, even reactionary pursuit; it serves no end but to essentialise race as the ultimate component of human identity.

Of course the origin of this is the complete victory of neoliberal thought even in the progressive mind. Identity politics after all is naught but neoliberalism filtered through modern pseudo-progressive sensibilities (and nearly all progressives these days are pseudo-progressives).

The stupidest example of this I’ve seen recently, and alas I don’t remember which site I saw it on, was the idea that making a certain kind of food that combined cuisine from two cultures was “cultural appropriation.”

Damn, if that person knew anything — anything at all — about the history of food and all the cross-pollination, hybridization, immigration-related fusions and borrowing, she could never eat anything but like a tree stump. And maybe not even that.

Even rap music which in the modern liberal moron mind supposedly “belongs” to black people is just an instance of a form of music that happens in all human cultures when people are too goddamn poor to afford instruments.

Such as puirt a beul, or Scottish mouth music. Notice particularly the end where it sounds pretty damn rap-like.

Fighting cultural appropriation is like fighting the wind — on Neptune.

But it’s a nice distraction from real issues, which is its real intent anyway.

I believe depression is real. It exists. But I can’t understand it.

It is so far from my experience that it’s hard for me to even conceptualize it. I’m always so neutral, so equanimous. It means I have no great highs but also no great lows. Though it’s hard to say because I’ve never been anyone else — but I never seem to get as ecstatic nor as excited as others get from time to time. Nor as deep in the doldrums. Or in any doldrums at all for that matter.

I’m an eternal observer. Because I’ve never known anything else, I like it that way.

Years ago, a friend of mine said to me, “You’re weird.”

“I’m weird? Yeah, I kinda know that.”

And she said, “If some guys came in here shooting this place up, I don’t think your facial expression would even change.”

“It depends on if they shoot me or not.”

“See? Weird…” she said.

Looking back, she knew me better than most people ever have I think.

Last night, we saw Julie Fowlis in concert, in a small venue with probably only about 100 people there.

Her singing and whistle-playing were just as stunning in live concert as on her albums. And she was also just as charming and sparkly in person as her YouTube videos make her seem. (As opposed to her latest album cover where she really looks nothing like herself.)

Could’ve met her after the concert, but we were hungry and ready to go — and what do I have to say to Julie Fowlis? “Durr, you sing real good. Like, real real good.”

Anyway, at $13 a ticket that concert was a steal.

*Puts hipster hat on*

I’ve been listening to JF since her first album — for nearly 10 years prior to her Brave movie fame — so it was cool to see someone so very good get well-deserved success and now artistically to be able to do what she wants.

And what she does is give an amazing concert with singing like no one I’ve ever heard.

The problem people have with evolutionary psychology isn’t whether any, all, or none of it is true.

The hatred for it hinges on the fact that it implies behavioral and mental constraints and limitations — that something other than directed conscious thought is controlling you and your destiny, a deus ex machina from times past reaching into the future.

Why this bothers people I haven’t a clue, because it’s clear in other arenas that life is often only vaguely under one’s control.

Note: I believe there is an evolutionary psychology, though probably only about 10% of its “findings” now are true. Maybe as much as 25%. However, the brain is an evolved organ. And if you don’t believe the brain is an evolved organ, we have absolutely nothing to discuss in any arena.

Just bought a 49″ 1920×1080 TV for $362 out of pocket. Really, it’s more a big-ass monitor but the manufacturer calls it a TV so I will as well.

I remember when a 27″ TV was $500 for a decent one — with a 480p resolution as that’s all there was.

And that $500 was in 1994 dollars, so more like $800 now.

Decided against 4K for the TV as there is nearly no 4K content out there yet, and won’t be for several years. As often as we move and get rid of all our of stuff to go jaunting, gallivanting, traipsing and peregrinating, it just didn’t make sense.

The Walking Dead continues to be startlingly well-written.

At the beginning of the latest episode, Carol is dressed like a housewife and making a casserole — disguised as the person she used to be.

At the end of the episode, Carol ends up “disguised” to deceive a nihilistic group of dead-enders into believing that she is one of them, but her disguise in this case is truly her actual self.

Such a good show. So deft in its symbolism, and so true to its characters.

Here’s how Carol ends up in the last and truly excellent lead-out scene of the episode.

Lonely gunslinger going from the chaos to the unknown. The iconography couldn’t be more clear though you don’t really see that until the very moment it’s needed and where it truly works, as it’s all done so very well in the context of the episode.

Also in the last few scenes of the episode the casserole Carol had started 55 minutes before is done and gets taken out of the oven.

It had been baking while she killed roughly a dozen people who had been trying (and succeeding in) invading the community and murdering many of her friends.

The episode would’ve been amazing sans casserole. But with the casserole, it’s just pure genius.

Why do people do so much on smartphones?

I have one. I fucking hate it. If I didn’t need it I’d never use it.

And it’s not a low-end, either — it’s an iPhone 6. I have it because having one is required for work, but if I could I’d throw the damn thing in the trash in a skinny minute.

Reading on a smart phone is miserable (though better since the screens have become high-res). Actually achieving anything on one like booking an arline ticket or sending an email is a nightmare. It’s hilarious watching people struggle to do things on a smartphone that I can do literally 100 times faster on a desktop PC.

But that is one thing I like about smartphones — as long as desktop PCs exist and people continue to forget how to use a real computer and associated keyboard, my comparative advantage in the workplace goes way up.

Smartphones aren’t inherently bad. People who use them aren’t wrong for doing so, either. But they are a bit inexplicable to me because they tend to make all experiences worse.

I don’t get bored easily so that’s part of it. I can deal with 10 minutes of doing nothing because I’m always consolidating or attempting to generate ideas.

Other people? I’ve seen little evidence of this. Perhaps in that sense the smartphone is needed.