Mar 29

MI:4

Just such a great, tight action sequence. It’s perfect. It’s dramatic, funny, doesn’t have crazy cuts and it is its own little story. The half-silent argument via CCTV is just so well-done. What I love about the entire setpiece is that there is nothing you can add or take away to make it any better. The amount of artistry, great editing, actor talent and painstaking direction that it takes to create something like this is staggering to think about.

Mar 28

Thoughtless

What the Kids Are Reading.

This is sad but it also means there is no real competition emerging from previous generations for my job. These people are incapable of anything resembling thinking. It also partially explains why no one under 35 or so can troubleshoot at all. Their brains are optimized for clicking and drooling. You’ll never be able to puzzle out a thorny OSPF config issue if TikTok and YouTube is all you know and you can’t even read anything longer than a “Subscribe” button.

We, as they say, have done fucked up.

Mar 28

STEM Tide

STEM education should be eliminated from most colleges and universities, with a few special-purpose ones remaining such as MIT.

Instead, those interested in such fields should go to two-year trade-like schools that intensively teach those fields and the math if any (etc.) needed for each one. However instead of the students paying for the school, these would be two-year apprenticeships that pay enough to live on. If everyone insists the nation needs STEM so very badly, then fucking act like you mean it.

The remaining colleges and universities would revert to teaching the humanities and social sciences as they should, and would be free or low-cost (but not paid like the STEM ones). However, to go to the paid STEM trade school, any student would be required to graduate from one of the non-STEM unis and actually learn how to think and not just continue to be some autist goofus for life.

This would be far better than what we do now.

Mar 27

Sex Exist

What’s the biggest stereotype about men that’s not true?

That we only care about sex and are just unthinking sex brutes who have no other concerns or reason to exist. And, further, that the only reason that we talk to or help women is in the hopes of getting sex.

It often puts us in a weird double bind. Be nice to a woman or help her in some way? Oh, you just did that because you want to have sex with her!

Be neutral or not that helpful to a woman? Well, then you’re a terrible person who is obviously horrible to someone who clearly needed help! But then if you actually do give in and help, you must have only done that (as noted above) because you wanted to bang her!

It really bites ass. I’ve defaulted to just not being helpful as it’s better than dealing with all the weird accusations and ideas. Look, buddy, I’m tired. It’s hard enough to make time to have sex with my own partner much less anyone else.

Mar 27

No Des

A lot of the feminist project of the past 10-15 years has been an attempt to keep undesirable, annoying, pushy, aggressive and dangerous men (roughly in that order) away from PMC liberal women. It hasn’t worked well, of course. It has in actuality resulted in exactly the opposite of its intent in most ways.

The simple fact is that annoying, aggressive, dangerous and pushy men do not know or care about feminism and do not give a crap about if women wish them to stay away or not. The net result is that now women are more often approached by those types and never by any other; hence why you see fairly-frequent posts by PMC liberal women on Reddit like, “Why Do Men Never Talk To Me?” and such.

Lady, that’s exactly what you asked for. You got it. Ride public transit, though, and many men of the kind you definitely do not want all up in your face will be there, though.

You chose your choice. Now live with it, just like men do.

Mar 26

Amfood

I’ve spent enough time in places like Germany, Japan, Romania, Vietnam, Turkey, and Peru, to understand how different we are when it comes to food, and to see how little it matters to us, culturally speaking, compared to almost everyone else.

Same. American food culture is appalling. It’s just incredibly bad.

If you’ve lived outside of the US you don’t need data to tell you Americans eat quickly, and mechanically. We gulp our food down like starving beasts intent on moving onto the next thing, while everyone else takes their time, savoring the experience.

Not sure there is any one reason for this. Part is the Puritan work ethic-infected culture, part is that food is just considered meaningless fuel here. And part is a whole lot of Americans have never traveled or lived overseas, and when they do travel they only eat at McDonald’s still.

The article made me miss Eli’s church barbecue I used to get in Bradenton, Florida. Damn that was good. Not quite the best I ever had, but until you’ve had barbecue made by someone who really cares about it being great, you don’t know how amazing it can be.

Note that “Eli’s” wasn’t a restaurant. It was a literal 900-year-old-looking dude named Eli who made barbecue at a church down the street from where I worked. I smelled it one day and then went and found it on foot. I was the only white person there as it was a black church (no one cared). Then every time I got a whiff of that glorious scent, I went to get Eli’s barbecue.

Because that’s how you find the best barbecue: by scent.