"The human mind really can go blank during consciousness, according to a new review that challenges the assumption people experience a constant flow of thoughts when awake." Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.
Why Early Modern Books Are So Beautiful: Res Obscura
If you thought it was bad when the United States had its ass kicked in Vietnam and Afghanistan, this time Mr Superpower lost a knife fight against a Chinese weather balloon.
Elon Musk is like a child who moaned for two months straight that he wanted the most expensive Playmobil for Christmas, and now we're spending Christmas morning in a hospital waiting room because he put one of the little men up his bum.
Raath's First Rule of Writing: Don't let advice from others make your writing suck. You can make it suck all by yourself.
Historically, nothing significantly changes for the better if infrastructure isn't on fire.
I looked at thousands of South African etchings and paintings spanning the 20th century, so that you don't have to. Here's what I learned:
I have a terrible memory, but when I see people spit in public I immediately and vividly channel every single panel from every single Judge Dredd comic I ever read as a child.
Imagine military conflict between parties where at least one is a nuclear power as a poker game. Players start with ten chips worth a dollar each, two chips worth five dollars each, a single ten dollar chip, and a baseball bat. If this poker game is allowed to continue, sooner or later one player will raise the other a baseball bat. This is inevitable. Stop confrontations like this before they get out of hand, because sooner or later they will.
There are two types of people who don't want male and female sports teams unified into one single competition: men who feel threatened by women, and women who cling to perceived victimhood as their primary identity. Everyone else is pretty much fine with the idea.
Listening to Russian incel chatter on social media, and how often they use the word "gay" as a slur, the only thing they fear more than Ukrainians is a cuddle.
Amazing how authorities the world over are unsure about how to handle rightwing convoy protests and blockades, whereas they appeared quite confident when shutting down BLM protests a few years ago.
The Senseless, Tragic Rape of Charles Bukowski’s Ghost by John Martin’s Black Sparrow Press: https://mjpbooks.com/blog/the-senseless-tragic-rape-of-charles-bukowskis-ghost-by-john-martins-black-sparrow-press/
I suspect we don't yet know the full effect on modern societies of not having enforced shared culture. There was a time when countries had two or three television channels, and near everyone watched one of the three. On special occasions, everybody watched the same channel, or otherwise all channels would broadcast the same important event. Before television, there was radio. And newspapers. The majority of people would get their cultural influences from the same small number of sources. Local markets. Drinking establishments. Religious gatherings. Culture was globally diverse but locally homogeneous. People were "of a mind" to a degree, for better or worse. But communities have become culturally fragmented, suffering a loss of common culture. Does this contribute to the current global climate of disaffection? If so, to which degree and how?
If you're executing people in a humane way, you shouldn't be executing people at all. There is no nobility or grace in death, only blood and fear and soiling yourself. If a cause is important enough to kill someone for, it's worth doing it brutally and viscerally. An axe blurs the borders between executioner and executed in a mist of blood and dread. Nobody who has to swing the axe would ever condemn someone lightly.
You're watching the circus, and seeing the ringmaster and clowns and dancing bears. But they're not the important players. The guy who shovels bear shit runs things. Everything else is just that, a circus, performing spectacles for the amusement of the public.
The circus only works as long as people believe in it. The trapeze artists only appear death-defying if you believe they're in real danger. The same for the lion tamer. The clowns are only funny if you think there's real water in that bucket, instead of glitter and bits of tin foil. Belief in the circus is the only way the circus can exist.
People like the illusion of change, the illusion of making a difference. That's why they vote.
If you execute someone with a sword, you're just assaulting an unarmed civilian. And the guillotine is just an instrument of the civil service, which is why it never changed anything. Vote axe, vote permanent change.
People who describe themselves as "straight-shooting" generally deserve to be shot.
If your fiction features minority characters as decoration, your writing is bad. Presence without relevance and agency is offensive.
the pest, in a sense, is a very superior being to us: he knows where to find us and how – usually in the bath or in sexual intercourse or asleep. he is also very good at catching you in the crapper about halfway through a bowel-movement. if he is at the door you can scream, “Jesus, wait a minute, what the hell, wait a minute!” but the sound of the human voice in agony only encourages the pest – his beat, his ring becomes more excited. the pest usually beats and rings. you must let him in. and when he leaves – finally – you will be ill for a week. [Kindle highlight from Tales of Ordinary Madness, by Charles Bukowski]
“why don’t we go back out there and tell them what happened?” “because nothing happened except that everybody has been driven insane and stupid by life. in this society there are only two things that count: don’t be caught without money and don’t get caught high on any kind of high.” [Kindle highlight from Tales of Ordinary Madness, by Charles Bukowski]
The enemy wasn’t men, or women, or the old, or even the dead. It was just bleedin’ stupid people, who came in all varieties. And no one had the right to be stupid. [Kindle highlight from Monstrous Regiment, by Terry Pratchett]
I don't ask your permission, I don't ask your forgiveness. If things get out of hand, I'll ask the court to be lenient as it's my first offence, but that's the only ask I'll ask.
The same wingnuts second-guessing scientists over a virus are saying that IT people are conspiring to lie about Facebook going down due to a bad router update. Oh no. Non-IT people are being clueless about tech. And have stupid ideas. Oh what will we do. This is uncharted territory and completely unprecedented, sysadmins the world over will be in tears. /s
A slightly risqué morale booster: see if there's a PornHub category describing you. Now realise there are people in this world who think you're perfect just the way you are, even if they might not be people you ever want to meet.
"My toddler is super smart, look at them go on an iPad!" Your iPad was designed for idiots. Your toddler is an idiot. Glad to be of assistance.
'Boy,' said Mr Sutcliffe, tugging at a sack, 'when you see a load of crows together, them's rooks. And when you see a rook on its own, that's a fucking crow.' [Kindle highlight from The Liar, by Stephen Fry]
Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true. [Kindle highlight from The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie]
The Kama Sutra sayeth: When a man applies wax from the carnuba bean to a woman’s yoni and buffs it with a lint-free cloth or a papyrus towel until a mirror shine is achieved, then it is called Readying the Mongoose for Trade-in. [Kindle highlight from Lamb, by Christopher Moore]
Why do so many American bars and restaurants appear to be American-themed? Guys, you live there. Try a different theme already.
The democratic struggle of the last few centuries can be summed up as the belief that adding more idiots to the formula will lead to less idiocy.
Watching conspiracy theorists explain their decisions is like watching a 1960s chimpanzee explain how he came to be strapped into the pilot seat of a rocket leaving the stratosphere.
Just so you know, when people blame the patriarchy for something, nine times out of ten they mean capitalism.
Well sure, I'm not a "real" proctologist, but I've watched several Youtube videos on the subject and I feel ready to give it a go.