The Weird, Random or Interesting Things That Fit Nowhere Else Thread

[Gfted1]

Germany’s Typhoon problem: Only four fighters can be made combat ready.

 

Uh Oh, Spaghetti O's

[Raithe]

Could this be a little over the top?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_bV6syHhDU

[Malcador]

Because she attacked him later, if I recall correctly.

[Guard Dog]

How to succeed in music (dudes need not apply) http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/go-for-launch/la-sci-sn-pop-song-success-20180516-story.html

[Raithe]

From another author (David Weber) weighing in on the batch of conventions disinviting folks due to political issues...

 

 

 

 

So, I don't get out on social media much. Some of the current meltdowns pretty much illustrate why I don't. Well, that and the fact that I recognize what a time sink it would turn into if I spent a lot of time out here.

 

Nonetheless, I thought I'd add my two cents worth on this whole question of disinviting people from conventions.

First, let me say that I think "disinviting" anyone from anything is a bad idea. It's usually the result of caving in to someone's lynch mob mentality, usually couched in the properly hysterical massacre of innocent photons on Facebook and the Twitterverse. And that lynch mob mentality results from total closure of the mental synapses. God forbid that anything like a challenging idea might creep in and unbalance the perfection of their Visualization of the Cosmic All.™ I don't care whether the people pushing for disinviting are from the left or the right — as far as I'm concerned, they are all from Pluto . . . and I wish they'd go back there. Unless you can demonstrate to me that someone actually has — as opposed to has allegedly — physically assaulted someone, preyed upon a minor, or advocated violence, and unless this information became available to the public record only after the invitation was issued, then there is no legitimate or moral basis for revoking an invitation. Leaving aside simple considerations of common courtesy and moral decency, I always thought — in my innocent youth, at any rate — that science fiction was supposed to be about the exchange of ideas. That we were supposed "to go where no one has gone before and explore new worlds and new civilizations." And I was under the impression that it's usually by contacting contrarian ideas that our own understanding grows. That in being open to learning — gasp! Someone give me oxygen! — from new or competing ideas we strengthen our own understanding. In defending our own ideas in a robust debate we both deepen our own understanding of those ideas and test them for flaws.

 

Apparently, in this brave new age of ours, I was mistaken.

One of the problems, of course, is that "robust debate" and "courteous debate" seem to have become contradictions. I love people who will go at it with me hammer-and-tongs on matters political and even religious, as long as both sides of the debate are willing to give the other side equal "airtime" and to (a) respond courteously to the other's points/arguments and (b) to at least provisionally assume that the other person is at least potentially a decent human being who simply disagrees (possibly just because he's mistaken or even misinformed), and not a malevolent entity from the depths of hell out to destroy all that is good, decent, and true in the universe. I don't care whether the other party to the conversation is a progressive, conservative, socialist, Libertarian, monarchist, or any other "ist," "ive," or "ian" you care to name. I have never in my entire life had a discussion — and I mean a serious discussion — with someone of an opposing political or religious persuasion without learning something. Sometimes, the something in question challenged or even changed my own position. More often, it simply caused me to understand the texture of my own beliefs and where they came from more deeply. At the end of my life, I'd like someone to say — as William Buckley, junior, said about one of his lifetime friends — that they remember me for years of love, friendship, and fiercely honest intellectual debate.

Not so much of that going around these days.

 

And "disinviting" guests is one more nail in the coffin, which is why it should always be a last resort, not a first response, which is exercised only after new information comes to light demonstrating an actual offense falling under the category I discussed above. If it was already out there in the public record, then you damned well should've known about it before you issued the invitation, so don't come crying to me now because someone else has dug it up. You issued the invitation. Be an adult. Stand by it.

 

Second, about the cons that do practice this particular perversion. I won't be going to them in the future, and I don't care whether it was because they disinvited a friend of mine or someone I despise. Mind you, I'm human enough to feel a deeper satisfaction at striking off the name of a con that disinvites somebody I like, but that's really secondary. Cons have a responsibility to decide before they invite someone whether or not that guest is such a moral leper that they don't want him or her (let's be egalitarian here) on the premises. This isn't a decision they're supposed to make after they've invited someone, and if they don't know enough about the guest to make it before they issue the invitation, then they haven't done their own due diligence. Once they've invited a guest and announced it to the world, they have a moral obligation to stand by that invitation. I remember when Archon disinvited Tim Bolgeo. I'd just been to the con as a recent guest of honor and they treated me very well and I'd had a very good time. But I've known Timmy since 1991 and I knew there was exactly zero truth to the allegations leveled against him. So when they caved, disinvited him because of what I knew were lies, I made the decision — which I communicated to the convention at the time — that I would not be returning until they issued a formal apology to him or there was an entirely new con committee. That's been my policy ever since, which causes me considerable pain in the case of ConCarolinas, for a lot of reasons.

 

Third, about people who feel "unsafe" or "threatened" by announced guests.

Don't go.

It's really simple. An infallible defense against any sort of threat you might experience in that reprehensible individual's presence. And if you feel especially triggered, contact the convention and explain to them that you won't be coming because of a specific guest they've invited. That's always your prerogative. What is not the prerogative of a putatively adult human being is to throw a temper tantrum and demand that the offending guest be removed. Unless you can demonstrate and document a case — and Internet accounts of what a friend of a friend of another friend of an acquaintance had to say about someone is not, God help us, documentation — in which that guest has personally threatened or harmed someone (and emotional distress because they disagree with you doesn't count), then you have no justification at all in demanding that the con make them go away so that you can have a stress-free three-day weekend. You can vote against that guest's ever being re-invited with your pocketbook, if that's what you want to do, but aside from that, put on your grown-up undies and either go or don't go.

 

Fourth, about cons who disinvite a guest because they are afraid "we can't adequately provide for your security" while while they are there. What the hell business did they have putting together a con in the first place? Security during the event is one of the con's fundamental responsibilities. Now, admittedly, for most of our cons, that's seldom a huge problem, because fans are by and large (there are exceptions, and David, you know I'm talking about you) law-abiding types at least when in the company of our fellow geeks. But it's one of the areas any con has to deal with, and it should damn well do it before issues its invitations. Which means that if a con goes ahead and invite a guest who the con committee believes may be controversial, may actually require the additional security, they arrange for it at the same time they extend the invitation. And if it they discover only after the invitations have been extended and accepted that someone plans on harassing one of their guests (like, say, John Ringo at ConCarolinas), then they go out and they get the additional security. I'm sure e local law enforcement would be happy to work with them if they anticipate a serious issue. And if the issue they anticipate isn't at least serious enough for them to see a need to contact the local LEOs, then it isn't damned well serious enough to justify revoking an invitation.

 

Fifth, specifically about John and Larry Correia.

I've known John for a lot of years now. He is a cantankerous, stiffnecked, unapologetic, sometimes dismayingly forthright individual. Personally, I think those are virtues. (He also smokes cigars, which I do not think is a virtue, but every rose has its thorn's.) He is perfectly capable of peeling the bark off of his un-minced words, he has little patience with fools, and he does not suffer attack without responding. Having said that, I for one have never seen him initiate combat (verbal or otherwise) on a personal level. I have seen him respond with a devastating retaliatory strike, but that's usually restricted to terminating the patent absurdity and stupidity of the other person's argument with extreme prejudice. I know that he is neither a misogynist nor a racist nor a homophobe nor a practitioner of kinky sex with minors. And I also know that his beloved wife would kick his posterior up between his ears if he were any of the above. In other words, there was exactly no justification at all to the complaints raised against him which led to his craven disinvitation. It was, quite simply, an ideological hit job . . . that worked.

 

I certainly can't demonstrate the connection between the success against John and the eerily similar attack on Larry at Origins. That doesn't mean that I don't personally suspect that the two are connected. Hyenas grow bolder when they successfully pull down one target, after all. I haven't known Larry as long as I've known John, but I know that Sharon and I like him and Bridget a lot, that I've had some very free ranging conversations with him, and that if there is a misogynistic bone in his body (which, admittedly, is a rather large body) neither Sharon nor I have ever seen a sign of it. (Wait! He's a Mormon! Obviously that means he's misogynistic . . . at least in some particularly narrowminded, bigoted quarters. But I digress.) Like John, Larry doesn't really have a reverse gear, intellectually speaking. Neither one of them is backing up just because someone disagrees with him or finds his audacity in daring to challenge their own intellectual or ideological blinkers a threat. Their attitude (and mine, truth in advertising) is that if the water is too cold for you, you should stay the hell out of the swimming pool. Meanwhile, we're up for a good game of water polo.

 

Clearly, however, there is a lynch mob mentality out there that doesn't really care about things like honesty, mental integrity, respect for opposing viewpoints, or freedom of thought. And, equally clearly, like the hyenas they resemble (I am speaking purely metaphorically, of course; I would never insult someone by suggesting they really are hyenas), they are further emboldened every time the pack pulls someone down successfully.

 

So, for whatever it's worth, Sharon and I are officially signing on to John's proposed counter strategy (which, after all, we were already pursuing on our own). Any con which disinvites a guest for any reason other than demonstrated misbehavior on that guest's part (such misbehavior to include threats of violence but not simply threats to someone else's complacency) will go on to our list ("Oh, we have a little list! We have a little list!") of conventions at which we will be forever missed. I don't like blacklisting, as a usual thing, and I certainly don't subscribe to it where individuals are concerned. This is really the only weapon pros have in this situation, though. John's right; the cons need guests more than we need them. Sharon and I don't go to cons to sell books. We don't go because we think it's necessary for professional recognition. We go because we love our fans and this lets us spend time with them. That's it. The total reason for the David and Sharon Traveling Roadshow is our fans. We really don't like giving up opportunities to spend that time with them, but we can't in good conscience support a convention which is so cowardly, so contemptible, that it doesn't stand by its original guest list simply because of an unsubstantiated, baseless, libelous mass hysteria on social media. That's not even contemptible, people; it's beneath contempt.

 

I'm sure we've infuriated at least some people by accurately and honestly characterizing their efforts to enforce their version of groupthink and the intellectual fascism that calls in the storm troopers of social media to dehumanize decent and honorable human beings who happen to disagree with them.

You know what?

We're fine with that.

 

 

 

[rjshae]

https://thevinylfactory.com/features/the-curious-tale-of-bhutans-playable-record-postage-stamps/

[Gfted1]

With their 15 minutes fading into the rear view, Parkland students vomit words.

[Malcador]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-shows-sight-santa-fe-150800287.html

 

 

"What was going through your head when you found out that this was going on?" one reporter asked the man.

 

"Get to the school, make America great again," he responded.

 

"By doing what? What was your plan of action?" she continued.

 

"Offering support," he said. "Just, 'God bless y'all' will go a long way right now for a lot of people."

 

"God bless y'all," he added before walking away from the cameras.

Must be a false flag Edited May 18, 2018 by Malcador

[rjshae]

https://www.wired.com/story/congress-latest-move-to-extend-copyright-protection-is-misguided/

 

Pardon my French, but can you say "Disney's bitches". Bend over congress and take it from Mickey.

[Gromnir]

"that green-blooded son of a bitch! it's his revenge for all those arguments he lost!"

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/some-reason-these-lizards-have-toxic-green-blood-180969103/

 

an alternative to the copper-based hemoglobin explanation for the color of spock's blood?  maybe not, but is kinda interesting even so.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Lexx]

"A group of skinks that live in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands have blood that is lime green."

 

Sounds more like german censorship from the early 2000s to me.

[ktchong]

I have removed your post on the grounds that it may be considered offensive. 

 

~ Gorgon.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Gorgon

[majestic]

So that is essentially what happens when you let a male "1" write something like that. Terrible hygiene inclucded.

[Gorgon]

Indeed, says more about the type of individual who would create something like that than anything else. 

[Hurlshort]

The chart is pretty tasteless. I would say it's not a good thing to have up on an official developer's forum. Just my two cents.

[Gorgon]

Alright, you have convinced me.

[Volourn]

"I have removed your post on the grounds that it may be considered offensive. 

 

~ Gorgon."

 

 

"Alright, you have convinced me."

 

L0L Your post offends me please remove it.

 

Seriously, let him have the pic. It fits in this thread.   Why doesn't somebody post one listing all  'ratings' for the guys. For the record, I'd be a 2 or 3 on a chart. Stop being TRIGGERED.

[majestic]

"I have removed your post on the grounds that it may be considered offensive. 

 

~ Gorgon."

 

 

"Alright, you have convinced me."

 

L0L Your post offends me please remove it.

 

Seriously, let him have the pic. It fits in this thread.   Why doesn't somebody post one listing all  'ratings' for the guys. For the record, I'd be a 2 or 3 on a chart. Stop being TRIGGERED.

 

Hush little Volo, I'm sure you're pretty on the inside.

[Gorgon]

"I have removed your post on the grounds that it may be considered offensive. 

 

~ Gorgon."

 

 

"Alright, you have convinced me."

 

L0L Your post offends me please remove it.

 

Seriously, let him have the pic. It fits in this thread.   Why doesn't somebody post one listing all  'ratings' for the guys. For the record, I'd be a 2 or 3 on a chart. Stop being TRIGGERED.

Yeah I don't like the wording myself.  'Considered offensive' That sounds like textbook PC. On the other hand it was kinda gross and pointless. 

[Volourn]

"Hush little Volo, I'm sure you're pretty on the inside."

 

Nah. On the inside, I'm a full fledge 1.

[majestic]

"Hush little Volo, I'm sure you're pretty on the inside."

 

Nah. On the inside, I'm a full fledge 1.

 

So, how's your hygiene?

[Volourn]

Just be glad you only interact with me on the computer. :wink:

[majestic]

*puts on his cloak and wizard hat*

[Blarghagh]

Does triggered refer to anyone who finds anything offensive these days?

[smjjames]

Does triggered refer to anyone who finds anything offensive these days?

Usually used in the sarcastic sense or in the sense of ‘stop being a snowflake’.