"Even without full scan function, I still had my dark vision filters and my own mapping data, so with the fixed point of the corridor hatch, I could retrace my steps to the ramp. It just looked awkward and stupid because for the first part I had to navigate like a floor-cleaning bot." - Martha Wells, System Collapse
(Video and audio description below the cut)
VIDEO ID:
An animated video of Murderbot, in a full environmental suit (featuring a little 'Perihelion' logo on its chest and an opaque helmet).
Murderbot is wandering around a dark space, the sound of its footsteps on the stone floor are audible. It walks in a straight line to the right until it hits a pillar with an audible 'thunk' noise and stops. A grumpy smiley face appears next to it.
It recalibrates, making little chirping calibrating sounds, then turns and moves towards the viewer until it seems to hit the camera (again with a 'thunk' noise and a little frowny smiley face next to it) and recalibrates again.
It turns its back to the viewer and starts walking again, this time seemingly hitting the wall in the back. It recalibrates again, then turns to the right and starts walking again. After a few seconds it stops briefly, two exclamation marks appear next to it along with a beeping noise, then it quickly walks out of frame.
i dont think beef, montrose and emerich are actually together but i do think they sit in a pile like that on breaks and then they wonder why the rest of the park thinks theyre poly
found 'the way' a really interesting piece of speculative fiction exploring the idea of anti-migrant xenophobic violence being turned inwards towards 'legitimate citizens' when interests of capital are threatened by struggle, but this sequence in the last episode def stood out to me as a neoluddite.
feels connected to this quote from dan mcquillan's 'resisting ai - an anti-fascist approach to artificial intelligence':
Bergson argued that if one accepts a ready- made problem in this way, "one might just as well say that all truth is already virtually known, that its model is patented in the administrative offices of the state, and that philosophy is a jig- saw puzzle where the problem is to construct with the pieces society gives us the design it is unwilling to show us." (Deleuze, 2002, cited in Coleman, 2008)
In other words, however sophisticated or creative AI might seem to be, its modelling is stuck in abstractions drawn from the past, and so becomes a rearrangement of the way things have been rather than a reimagining of the way things could be. AI has, in effect, an inbuilt political commitment to the status quo, in particular to existing structures that embed specific relations of power. The absence of different concepts leaves out the possibility of conceiving that things could be arranged differently.
okay but i think it says a lot about eddie that he clearly wanted to graduate high school.
in some way or another, it was clearly something he actually wanted to do, or he would have just dropped out when he flunked his first senior year.
but he didn't. he tried again. and again. those aren't the actions of someone who couldn't care less if they get a diploma or not. the whole school thinks he's a freak, he goes through the embarrassment every day of being the 20-year-old super-duper senior, but he does still go to school.
idk whether it might be partly on his uncle's suggestion (wayne seems to want the best for eddie and that probably means getting some qualifications), or whether he wants to do it for himself (to prove that he could, in fact, do it) but either way, instead of dropping out when he so easily could have (especially after his 2nd try) he didn't.
and this is why i so desperately wanted to see him graduate. it wasn't just about "getting out of this dump" (which he could have done years ago by dropping out) it was about proving he could do it, that he could accomplish this mile stone and then move on.
I don't know how I'd ever convey this in art but. Thinking very deeply about how in boy king au, a very crucial part of characterization is that Seb is a wolf in sheep(or lamb more specifically)'s clothing and Fernando is a sheep in wolf's clothing.
Seb is very unassuming, very delicate, seemingly very vulnerable and malleable. But, deep down, he can be very ruthless. It's in the the way he hesitantly declares war, with a spark in his eye and a suppressed smirk. In the way he challenges someone to a card game or a horse race, proclaiming that he's not great, but winning every round and prancing around the room and mentioning it ad infinitum. The way he's able to instantly turn the tide in a debate in one fell swoop. By showing all his cards constantly and letting himself be vulnerable, he's making himself invulnerable. No one would ever consider him to be able to make big moves, so he wins every single time, because no one even thinks to expect it from him.
Fernando on the other hand, is constantly committed to having a looming presence and harsh reputation, but deep down, he's soft. He knows what happens to people when they're vulnerable, and he's not going to let himself be taken advantage of. The way he keeps a brave face when being informed of the marriage proposal, but goes back to his room and cries. The way he proclaims that he was always going to be the rightful ruler of Spain, but confides to Flavio that he never thought there was any real chance of it ever happening. The way he takes himself so seriously in public, but inside feels so giddy whenever he can make someone laugh. Everything to him always feels unstable and ready to crumble at any moment, and he's not willing to contribute to that by letting himself relax.
I think thats why it's very difficult for them to get along at first, because they have completely different approaches to how they carry themselves and make their way through life. Seb is confused at Fernando because he feels that he's very bland and overly serious at first, but truthfully he's not really seeing the actual Fernando. And Fernando finds Seb to be naive and easily taken advantage of, but that's because he's never seen Seb at his most cruel. Seb really loves when he eventually gets to see Fernando being vulnerable, and Fernando really admires and respects Seb when he sees him being serious. I think it just takes a while for them to show the other their full and complete selves, even the parts they can sometimes be ashamed of. There's this very compelling dichotomy in Seb laying out all his cards, but still being very difficult to read, and Fernando keeping his cards to his chest, but his intentions often being easily seen through.
i love dnd..i love playing heavy utility/support/backfield and i love having three to six attacks in a turn and an insane ac. at heart im a support player ill get my hands on whatever we're missing in a group
when miri is fully grown and moves away from the family home, the papas move to the countryside and become the unofficial elder gays in the little village
I keep thinking about Hell's words: "This is the only way it should have ended."
Should. Not could. *Should*.
Like V1 should have been mass produced, obliterated all the Earth Movers, and then the next machine should have come along to counter it in turn and continue the war. Like all that fighting and the cycle of violence should have been perpetuated.
Like Mankind should never have finally gotten their act together, and tried to continue on even in the absence of divinity and in the face of total climate collapse.
There's a notable difference between 'could' and 'should', and the fact that those words are spoken by the only one who would've been *extremely disappointed* by this outcome has me raising eyebrows.
love that its canon Kazuma can lust after his god, subjugate people, hurt anyone, kill people and not blight his master. dudes compertmentalizing game is unmatched. you post "normalize killing and torturing" on tumblr dot com and kazuma just gets a chill out of nowhere as he has the masters doctorate on exactly that. bro normalized sinning