Plus, the whole thing is about putting your money in some place where it will passively gain value, so that when you retire you will have compounded wealth. Well – that whole system seems to be faltering in its own right. I mean, the stock market is not rational, that is pretty evident at the moment.

You’re telling me you want me to forego part of my paycheck each month in favor of a tiny piece of ownership of a cross section of companies – which I can only claim the actual liquid value without strict penalty until after I’m 67 – and the value of which is highly dependent on the irrational fears and hopes of other people? and, if not that, upon how well that cross section of corporations extract wealth from the rest of the population? that that money is almost guaranteed to grow is part of the whole issue of the requirement of capitalism to achieve infinite growth year after year – and if it does grow? – where the hell does that money come from? Less and less from transformation of materials into value, and the exchange of that value for money. Less and less from the rendering of a service and the exchange of money for that service. More and more from the enclosure of resources (perhaps including the up front, one-time transformation of materials into those resources, and continued maintenance) and the extraction of rents for use (see: the current state of computing and data storage).

There’ve got to be losers here. If my future wealth is going to be based on a bunch of economic losers having near nothing when they reach the same age, wtf is the point? what is the point if I have wealth and my neighbor has nothing.

If my own future wealth is dependent on me owning a piece of an entity that pays a worker a fraction of the value of their labor – that makes its profit purely on that distinction – I think I probably ought to avoid that whole system altogether out of simple solidarity.

Edit: this is a rant.

Edit2: Oh yeah and thats all not to mention these companies I’d be vesting in are quickly destroying the global ecosystem

Quite skeptical of solutions that don’t involve just leaving the environment be and letting natural processes play out. Like trying to keep a forest healthy by “controlled” burning/logging, clearing downed trees as if they were human trash instead of newly fallen habitats for myriad species of life, distributing nutrients into the soil at a pace that seems slow to us but perhaps necessary to who-knows-how-many species.

The idea that we can affect nature on a human-rather-than-geological timescale is true. The idea that we could bring a particular ecosystem from collapse into balance on a human timescale, with rudimentary human interventions, is full of hubris and folly. They’re intricate systems in which innumerable species have co-evolved over millions and millions of years. We all know about the butterfly effect. Many of us have read A Sound of Thunder. How about Frankenstein? Icarus? We ostensibly know the lessons. When will we finally change our actions to be in line with what we are – a small component of a global ecosystem – instead of masters over it?

what kinda meter are you using? I feel like f5.6 1/250 seems maybe ~2 stops slow for the shadows. Although the buildings might’ve been lost in the light at say f4 1/125. Do you know if harmon Phoenix likes being underexposed or overexposed?

I’ll go against the grain here. It’s not as much, to me, about whether homeschooling is good or bad. I think it has the potential to be really good and really bad for the kid, depending on the parents.

But people who say, “kids won’t get socialization” if they are homeschooled seem to think that tossing all our socially-unformed people into one location, with little socially-formed supervision, is automatically going to teach the former group how to socialize with others in a healthy manner. It’s not. It just creates trauma for kids all around. Child on child abuse.

Not only that, but you strip kids of agency by putting them in a building where they can’t leave, controlling their movements by a bell, assessing and grading their performance by “objective” measurements, subjecting them to authoritarian teachers – it’s all so degrading and the opposite of what id consider a healthy learning environment.

If schools had more adults integrated into student activities – all the activities – sitting at lunch, class, band, whatever, – removing the barrier of superiority, removing lettered grading system, paying more teachers more, maybe id consider it. But as the school system is in the US now, id never want to send my kid

Edit: obviously not all schools are like this. But they are in my city. Id have to move to a more affluent town to be able to trust the school system.

Yup! Boston.

Well, Cambridge, really. MIT/Kendall Square

I’m just so tired of seeing 1984 and Brazil and Idiocracy and every other political warning and satire played out in the real world every goddamn day of my life

As always, it’s a wait and see. But it’s hard to shake the expectation set by The Last of Us (btw I didn’t watch S2) that while it may have high production value (perhaps that’s less of a guarantee with Amazon rather than HBO), it’s prone to be less impactful than playing the game due to the compressed time we get to spend with the characters.

It’s nice the stories are more accessible through tv, but the games are still plenty cinematic, still have great performance from actors, just-as-good-or-better writing – I’ll wait for reviews, but thinking this will be a pretty easy skip for me, since I already have played the games.

Ahhh…Well, in that case, I think you should quietly ask her out. I personally don’t think its wrong of you to do that. I’d keep it on the down low, of course. Who knows, maybe one of you gives the other the ick and it turns out to be nothing more than two platonic coworkers hanging out outside of work (I know, unlikely). If it does develop further romantically, at least you’re now out of the love triangle and into a secret romance…which im kinda inclined to think that is better than a perpetually unresolved love triangle. But yeah, its tough. Wishing you good luck!

How realistic is it for you to be able to talk to Jane about it all? Maybe you could get a clearer picture about her (perhaps, lack of) feelings toward John.

Feels kinda silly for him to stay at a job he hates just for someone he hasn’t been on a date with yet…sounds like could be an infatuation situation but im not sure…

definitely juicy though! sorry you’re in the middle of it

edt: phrasing. also, course its not as simple for John as “just leave the job and find another.” surely there are other factors to him staying on board

Showing my partner Twin Peaks. Just finished E2 “Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer”

Forgot how quick shit goes crazy in this show and it’s amazing.

I hate silicon tips usually but these are my preference too. I have ccx brand ones though.

The output of the human animal’s “play” drive were commodified.

If I were you, I’d get an compact digital camera like an olympus xz-1. its a little 10mp camera with manual control options. the lens is a built in zoom lens, but it is a wide f1.8 which will allow you to experiment with lower light scenarios and thin depth of field for portraits. It wont get you insane sharpness or croppability (so, get your composition right when you take the shot) but it has nice out-of-camera colors, so you won’t have to delve into the editing world. I shoot film and I got one for my partner so she could have a camera to walk around with with me that looks comparable to film due to its softness.

it wont be as satisfyingly tactile to learn about the exposure triangle (ie, as you change the values of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO in order to capture the right amount of light) as a manual film camera or a digital mirrorless body with interchangeable lenses, but itll definitely be fun to walk around with.

it shouldnt be as overwhelming re: features as modern day mirrorless cameras, which can get confusing with the amount of systems that are within them (like pixel shift, bracketing, internal image stabilization systems, etc. – you don’t need these to learn the basics of photography, and they can be a barrier if you get too caught up with them or finding theyre introducing another variable thats screwing with your shots).

And, if you want to be lazy, put it in auto mode and its a decent little point n shoot. it wont get you near wildlife photography, though, if thats something you’d want to dabble in (that gets expensive). it also wont be great if you want to try manual focusing.

I’d say if you just want a camera for a nice walkaround hobby, a mirrorless or dslr camera is a little bit overkill and the xz-1 is a good inexpensive buy if you can get one for like $300. a good modern starting camera with a lens is probably going to put you around $1k, and thats quite a bit of an investment.

If you want a real satisfying way to learn the utter basics of how a camera works, dont mind some unpredictability, have a camera lab near you, and have a couple hundred to spend, you could pick up a Pentax K1000 with a 50mm f2 lens for like $150 and shoot a few rolls of Kodak Gold 200 and send em off to a lab. But that will be a longer learning process (how to load film, advance it, what shutter speeds to remain under in order to compensate for your body’s movement, how to focus, how to respool the film into the canister once youve taken all your shots, etc). There’s nothing really more satisfying than a no-batteries, all mechanical experience, IMO. but its a lot of learning and can get expensive.

Edit: though, maybe since you’ve already got experience with your Dad’s Nikon, you’d rather something of your own more akin to that…in that case …hmmm well I’m running an Olympus OM-1 mkii as my mirrorless … you could get the mark 1 (essentially the same except for a couple niche features for wildlife) and the 12-40 f2.8 lens for ~1000 and that’d be pretty baller starting kit, imo. the 12-40 is a really really good lens, esp for ~$500. The nice thing about that is it’d be totally weather sealed (like, just let the rain hit it directly and dont even worry) and you have access to try out more modern computational photo tech. It would also allow you to expand into other areas like nature for a bit cheaper than if you went for a Full frame alternative like canon or sony or nikon. You could get a decent birding setup with a Om-1 and a 300mm f/4 pro for ~$5000, where something akin in full-frame land would be more like 7k-10k. Though, there are still tradeoffs going with a smaller micro-four-thirds sensor of the OM-1 – but honestly I don’t think you super need to worry about them.

good luck, I also have a strange affection for that movie

Cats pretend aggression when playing with each other

Ken Lacorte

The former…Fox News executive? Who killed the Trump-Stormy story before the 2016 election… uhhh… yeah im not fucking trusting that dude.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_LaCorte#Alleged_Fox_News_Trump_cover-up

I do not believe that which was created through collective labor should be able to be enclosed, so that the encloser can extort others for access.

The house was not built by its owner. It was erected, decorated, and furnished by innumerable workers–in the timber yard, the brick field, and the workshop, toiling for dear life at a minimum wage.

The money spent by the owner was not the product of his own toil. It was amassed, like all other riches, by paying the workers two-thirds or only a half of what was their due.

Moreover–and it is here that the enormity of the whole proceeding becomes most glaring–the house owes its actual value to the profit which the owner can make out of it. Now, this profit results from the fact that his house is built in a town possessing bridges, quays, and fine public buildings, and affording to its inhabitants a thousand comforts and conveniences unknown in villages; a town well paved, lighted with gas, in regular communication with other towns, and itself a centre of industry, commerce, science, and art; a town which the work of twenty or thirty generations has gone to render habitable, healthy, and beautiful.

A house in certain parts of Paris may be valued at thousands of pounds sterling, not because thousands of pounds’ worth of labour have been expended on that particular house, but because it is in Paris; because for centuries workmen, artists, thinkers, and men of learning and letters have contributed to make Paris what it is to-day–a centre of industry, commerce, politics, art, and science; because Paris has a past; because, thanks to literature, the names of its streets are household words in foreign countries as well as at home; because it is the fruit of eighteen centuries of toil, the work of fifty generations of the whole French nation.

Who, then, can appropriate to himself the tiniest plot of ground, or the meanest building, without committing a flagrant injustice? Who, then, has the right to sell to any bidder the smallest portion of the common heritage?

Kropotkin

honestly, choked up at the end. the frustration is just so real and its so cathartic to see someone say it how it is

This episode is fucking amazing and so cathartic.

https://youtu.be/dFjOb9DGS1w