You are viewing the historical archive of The Philosophy Forum.
For current discussions, visit the live forum.
Go to live forum

The Shoutbox

Jamal October 22, 2015 at 16:27 126825 views 61561 comments
This could function as a shoutbox I reckon.

Comments (61561)

Jamal March 04, 2025 at 08:36 #973766
Quoting Noble Dust
Anyway, tonight I made a vegan red lentil curry. It's quite good. Coconut milk and coconut oil seem to be the secrets.


I make dal quite often. My favourite is chana dal, but red lentils are good too. I haven't tried it with coconut stuff. I imagine it would work, but it's not the secret to good dal (or lentil curry) since mine is usually stupendous without it. If there's a secret I've discovered it's to use freshly chopped good tomatoes and not to skip the tempering stage, including cinnamon, cloves, and cumin.
Metaphysician Undercover March 04, 2025 at 13:33 #973820
Quoting Hanover
A kilo seems to be the preferred unit for cocaine busts. I think they do that so that we'll be impressed by the high number and not really know what they're talking about.


The narcs like to put a cash value on the drug busts. It's the high cash value which is really impressive. They like to show that they can take all this money out of the hands of organized criminals and put it into the hands of the governing agencies (maybe the government could sell the drugs and give the money to the needy).

In general, these drugs are dealt with in small quantities on the street, so grams are better than ounces as the measuring standard for the traffickers (fentanyl apparently is lethal at 2mg). As I understand it, the longstanding tradition has been to value a gram of coke at $100. That nice round figure, along with the rounding off of the seized supply to kilos, makes the procedure of assigning a cash value to the bust, easier for those who are mathematically challenged like myself. So they grab a couple pounds of coke from a dealer, which might have a value of $25,000 to that dealer, and they put out a press release which states that they seized a kilo of cocaine with a street value of $100,000.

This type of inflationary reporting, designed to impress, is all part of the reason why people have become very wary of government disinformation.
T Clark March 04, 2025 at 14:55 #973849
Quoting Noble Dust
I actually didn't notice.


What bothers me most is that I think @Outlander uses the same plate over and over.
Noble Dust March 04, 2025 at 17:41 #973900
Reply to Jamal

I have a complicated relationship with chickpeas. I adore hummus, but can find the texture of basic cooked chickpeas to be a bit chalky or grainy for me at times. So while I love the flavor of chickpeas, this comes back to The Lasagne Problem: texture, texture, texture. It's all about texture.

All that said, I've had some good chana dal in my day, usually from steam table taxi driver spots here in the city. For dal, my favorite is yellow lentils, but this recipe for red lentil dal is something I just stumbled upon, and now I've made it three times. I would imagine yellow lentils could be substituted, but maybe with a longer cook time; I'm not sure as I've never worked with them. Anyways.

Quoting T Clark
What bothers me most is that I think Outlander uses the same plate over and over.


Dear god, that's most definitely a bannable offense.
Noble Dust March 04, 2025 at 17:44 #973902
Reply to Jamal

Oh and as to your secrets, you Brits are probably second best at making Indian food, so I'll take your word for it. Good tomatoes are only in season here on the east coast in mid to late summer, so I used canned crushed tomatoes. I think they're great. I'm not using whole spices, but I do hear the tempering is the key, so I believe it. This recipe has you temper the ground spices for 30 seconds before adding in broth. Close enough? Heresy?
frank March 04, 2025 at 18:30 #973912
I just had Pacific coast Mexican with the special stewed beef called birria, a giant wad of cilantro, and various other unidentifiable flavors all wrapped up in what tasted like a flattened tamale. I ended up putting the contents into this consomme soup that came with it and it was like a stew. That turned into mouth heroin and I've got to have more, although next time fish instead of birria. This is what it looks like:

User image
Saphsin March 04, 2025 at 22:58 #973965
Reply to frank looks fantastic
T Clark March 05, 2025 at 00:36 #973976
Quoting Noble Dust
have a complicated relationship with chickpeas. I adore hummus, but can find the texture of basic cooked chickpeas to be a bit chalky or grainy for me at times. So while I love the flavor of chickpeas, this comes back to The Lasagne Problem: texture, texture, texture. It's all about texture.


So let me see if I understand this. Authentic texture is important when I’m doing the cooking, but not for you.

On the other hand, I agree with you. I don’t really like the texture of chickpeas either. When they’re called for in a recipe, I typically use those little mini marshmallows.
Jamal March 05, 2025 at 01:10 #973989
Quoting Noble Dust
I have a complicated relationship with chickpeas. I adore hummus, but can find the texture of basic cooked chickpeas to be a bit chalky or grainy for me at times. So while I love the flavor of chickpeas, this comes back to The Lasagne Problem: texture, texture, texture. It's all about texture.


Since chana dal is Bengal gram, quite different from the form of chickpea you might be used to, you should give it a try. It's more like split yellow peas. In fact that's usually what I use, though I've used real chana dal too. There's no chickpea texture in either case.

Quoting Noble Dust
This recipe has you temper the ground spices for 30 seconds before adding in broth. Close enough? Heresy?


Last time, which I think was my best ever, I went for a minute or two, then garlic and ginger and green chili for another minute or two, then the tomatoes, then ground spices 5 minutes later, then legumes, then broth, I think. But sure, yours will work :up:

I made it for some Russians and while they did love it and ask for more, two of them found it too spicy. That's their problem. It was mild to medium on my scale.
Jamal March 05, 2025 at 01:35 #973997
Quoting Jamal
then legumes


I should point out that for chana dal or yellow split peas or other big varieties of lentil type things, they're cooked separately before adding them.
Hanover March 05, 2025 at 03:32 #974010
Quoting T Clark
On the other hand, I agree with you. I don’t really like the texture of chickpeas either. When they’re called for in a recipe, I typically use those little mini marshmallows


In all fairness, this is schtick theft. I had this whole routine where I'd talk about how I'd substitute ridiculous ingredients in recipes, like instead of beef in hamburger, I'd use ice or something.

My mom made the best mac and cheese.



kazan March 05, 2025 at 05:43 #974030
Quoting Tom Storm
something is ineffable.


Mmmm!

cautious smile
BC March 05, 2025 at 06:31 #974036
@Shawn

User image

[i]“You certainly have a peculiar sense of humor.”[/I]

New Yorker Cartoon by Charles AddamsDecember 2, 1939
Hanover March 05, 2025 at 16:53 #974107
When I was a rat, I used to chew into the lentil bags and leave droppings.

True story.
Noble Dust March 05, 2025 at 18:28 #974116
Quoting Jamal
Since chana dal is Bengal gram, quite different from the form of chickpea you might be used to, you should give it a try. It's more like split yellow peas. In fact that's usually what I use, though I've used real chana dal too. There's no chickpea texture in either case.


Interesting, I wasn't familiar with the distinction, but as it happens, the last bag of chickpeas I bought were a new brand for me, and they looked smaller. Their texture once cooked was more agreeable. Maybe they were this variety.

Quoting Jamal
I should point out that for chana dal or yellow split peas or other big varieties of lentil type things, they're cooked separately before adding them.


Makes sense; red lentils being the quickest/mushiest, this recipe had them cook in the curry. The coconut milk is added (with a few blobs of almond butter, probably a vegan thickening "hack") after 20 minutes, and cooks for about 5 more.
Shawn March 05, 2025 at 21:57 #974152
Reply to BC

:up:

Thanks
Keep em coming.
T Clark March 06, 2025 at 00:07 #974169
Quoting Hanover
When I was a rat, I used to chew into the lentil bags and leave droppings.

True story.


Let’s say, hypothetically, from a philosophical perspective, if you were never actually a rat, would this still be true?
T Clark March 06, 2025 at 00:23 #974172
When I was just 13 - you might say I was a musical proverbial knee-high,
I heard a couple new sounding tunes on the tube
and they blasted me sky high.
And the record man said every one was a Yellow Sun record from Nashville,
And up north ain’t nobody buys ‘em, and I said, but I will.
And they were…

What were they?
BC March 06, 2025 at 02:54 #974192
Quoting T Clark
blasted me sky high


I was thinking "Rocket Man" but it wasn't done in Nashville and it wasn't on Yellow Sun Records. It was on Rocket Records. There is no Yellow Sun Record label in Nashville. There might be a yellow Sun Record label, however. Besides which, you were 25 -/+ when Rocket Man soared.
T Clark March 06, 2025 at 03:42 #974197
Hanover March 06, 2025 at 17:43 #974289
Quoting T Clark
Let’s say, hypothetically, from a philosophical perspective, if you were never actually a rat, would this still be true?


You raise an interesting logical question regarding how we are to treat the truth value of a subordinating clause, as in, should it be treated as a conditional or a statement of fact.

Consider the following conversation:

Bob: When I eat fries, I use a large amount of ketchup.
Jack: Do you enjoy kethup?
Bob: I don't know, I never have had ketchup.
Jack: But you just said you eat it with fries.
Bob: No, dumbfuck, I said when I eat fries I use ketchup, but I've never eaten fries.

It does seem that Jack made certain assumptions leading to his being called a dumbfuck. That's unfortunate.

If we consider the clause "When I eat fries" to mean "If I eat fries," then Bob would have a better leg to stand on. By saying "when" he led Jack to think he meant it has happened before, which the word when might mean, but obviously it did not mean it to Bob.

My comment of "When I was a rat, I used to chew into the lentil bags and leave droppings," assuming I speak like Bob, would not require that I have ever been a rat. I'm just telling you what I do when I'm a rat, but I've never actually been one.

But, even if I treat it as a conditional as Bob does, and even if I were never a rat, the answer to your question is that the independent statement "I used to chew into the lentil bags and leave droppings," could still be true. The entirety of the statement is not a biconditional, meaning it's possible that I could never have been a rat, but I still, from time to time, enjoy chewing lentil bags and leaving droppings. That is, it would be "if" and not "if and only if."

Thoughts?
T Clark March 07, 2025 at 00:22 #974387
Reply to Hanover
I plan to submit this post, along with your nomination for the Nobel Prize in Philosophy, to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Stuff.
T Clark March 07, 2025 at 04:07 #974423
There are a lot of sophisticated gastronomes here on the forum and I could use some help. I have a wine question. What kind of wine should I pair with peanut M&Ms? In particular, I’d like to hear from our wine expert, @Noble Dust.
Hanover March 07, 2025 at 04:29 #974426
Reply to T Clark Actually, if you mash the M&Ms and add yeast, you can make a fine M&M wine. You can then go the extra mile and distill it into an M&M brandy. It's called candy brandy.

BTW, I fell into the rhyme by accident cuz I'm a natural gangsta rapper.
Noble Dust March 07, 2025 at 04:53 #974430
Reply to T Clark

I've been sober for a little over a year, so I'm no longer your resident wine expert; sorry Clarky. My advice would be to eat Welch's fruit snacks instead of M&M's and pair them with a seltzer.
Jamal March 07, 2025 at 05:18 #974432
Reply to T Clark

The elegance and sophistication of a Provençal rosé would be perfect.
T Clark March 07, 2025 at 13:42 #974460
Quoting Jamal
The elegance and sophistication of a Provençal rosé would be perfect.


I think that makes sense for plain M&Ms, but I would think maybe peanut M&Ms would require something a little more robust.
Jamal March 07, 2025 at 14:58 #974474
Reply to T Clark

I'd forgotten that plain M&Ms exist. To me there's only one M&M and it's the peanut M&M. But you might be right. Try a Sicilian Perricone.
Hanover March 07, 2025 at 15:36 #974483
There are also almond M&Ms and peanut butter M&Ms. All of these require different pairings. I would also argue that red M&Ms should never be paired with red wine due to the over-abundance of red that would detract from an otherwise beige ideal. There are not white M&Ms to worry about pairing with white wine, but let's be honest, white wine is not really white and white people are not really white. White is what you see behind the letters I type.

I would suggest vinho verde, a green wine, particularly appropriate for M&Ms on St. Patty's Day. While I realize it too fails my beige test, in this instance I don't care.


T Clark March 07, 2025 at 15:56 #974487
Quoting Hanover
There are also almond M&Ms and peanut butter M&Ms.


These are not true M&Ms. As @Noble Dust might say, they are abominations.

Quoting Hanover
There are not white M&Ms


I have found that, if you suck on M&Ms for a few minutes, the dye in the surface coating dissolves and the result is a white M&M. Hypothetically, you could hire someone to pre-suck the candies and then spit them out when the color is gone. Perhaps your children could take care of this.
Hanover March 07, 2025 at 19:44 #974528
Quoting T Clark
you could hire someone to pre-suck the candies and then spit them out when the color is gone. Perhaps your children could take care of this.


I had a pervier idea.
BC March 07, 2025 at 19:48 #974529
If a tree doesn't fall in the forest, and there is no one present, is it still silent?
frank March 07, 2025 at 20:01 #974531
User image
BC March 07, 2025 at 20:48 #974535
In order to bring The Philosophy Forum into line with US Federal Guidelines on language, here is a list of words*** currently being scrubbed from USG official web pages:

activism
affirming
care
anti-racism
assigned at birth
at risk
biases
biologically male
BIPOC
black and latinx
clean energy
climate crisis
confirmation bias
cultural heritage
DEI
disability
discriminatory
disparity
diverse groups
diversity
equitableness
feminism
gender ideology
Gulf of Mexico
hate speech
implicit bias
inclusiveness
inequalities
iniustice
intersectionality
LGBTO
marginalized
most risk
multicultural
Mx nonbinary
people + uterus
pregnant people
prejudice
pronouns
racial inequality
sexuality
social justice
socioeconomic
stereotypes
systemic
they/them
transgender
traumatic

***New York Times, 3/7/25

All good candidates for elimination, but how are we White People supposed to talk about our superior "cultural heritage"? How are we to name the "systemic" "hate speech" directed at "dead white males"?

I especially dislike: Mx nonbinary, people + uterus, pregnant people, and assigned at birth. Why aren't the woke "they/them" referencing "people + penis"? We penis-bearing people are half of the population! Such "discriminatory" language is very "traumatic". Sex is determined at conception; it isn't assigned, it's confirmed with a quick glance and a box is checked.

You can't "care" less about this issue, because "care" is banned.
fdrake March 07, 2025 at 21:00 #974539
Quoting BC
at risk


Oh boy.
Arcane Sandwich March 07, 2025 at 21:18 #974541
Oxygen is a Drug.

Chance my Mind.
Arcane Sandwich March 07, 2025 at 21:19 #974543
Quoting Arcane Sandwich
Oxygen is a Drug.

Chance my Mind.


Change my Mind. But how could you? I already said that Oxygen is a Drug, remember? That is what caused me to mis-type in the first place. So, you can't change my mind on that. No one can. Not even God.
Arcane Sandwich March 07, 2025 at 21:20 #974544
Quoting BC
In order to bring The Philosophy Forum into line with US Federal Guidelines on language, here is a list of words*** currently being scrubbed from USG official web pages:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar_Nazi
BC March 07, 2025 at 21:47 #974559
User image

Grammar nazis have no more to do with German national socialism than Jerry Seinfeld's Soup Nazi did. An extended example is required.

Arcane Sandwich March 07, 2025 at 22:12 #974566
Reply to BC It was a good episode. A bit uncomfortable, for the sort of comedy that Jerry does (you know, he doesn't curse, for example, though he did allow some bad words from other performers every once in a while).
Hanover March 07, 2025 at 22:21 #974572
Reply to BCIdentifying our enemies by shibboliths. What's old is new again.

Judges 12:5–6[
Hanover March 07, 2025 at 23:45 #974606
Reply to BC Reminds me of a fylfot or gammadion.
Arcane Sandwich March 08, 2025 at 01:08 #974617
Pierre-Normand March 08, 2025 at 05:29 #974634
Quoting BC
If a tree doesn't fall in the forest, and there is no one present, is it still silent?


I asked both GPT 4.5 and Claude 3.7 Sonnet what some clever or humorous replies to this question might be. None of their suggested answers were good enough for me to pass them for my own. (Not that I would have done this anyway!)
BC March 08, 2025 at 06:15 #974636
Reply to Pierre-Normand I didn't have anything to offer, either.
Baden March 10, 2025 at 12:35 #975055
One fine May morning in the Buckinghamshire countryside, as the meadow’s dew---bathed in the rays of the nascent sun that peeked cheerily over the horizon---glinted like diamond dust, and fair England awoke to its sparklings, Little Lord Fauntleroy ate his pet rabbit, Cecil.

Lest this potentially startling fact disturb your steely faith in the moral purity of our child hero, allow me only to beg, fair reader, that you do not dismay, as the act, though no doubt, in its bare denotation, may appear a brazen crime against beauteous nature; nay, e'en more, against all form of human goodness and charity, you will be assuaged forthwith that it was, to the contrary, a matter of divine justice in which our little Lord was but the handmaiden of our greater.

For you see, Cecil was no innocent lagomorph of the type such as one with a languid eye may observe gamboling about fair England's green fields, the type, though one is tempted to shoot for sport, as one does partridges, deer and other delicious forms of game, one often relents in recognition of its sweet innocence and vulnerable character. No, as it turns out gentle friend, and I ask now only that you brace yourself for the coming revelation and forgive my necessary coarseness, Cecil was---let me wash clean my mouth with the most potent of purgatives as soon as the word escapes my lips---undoubtedly, unrestrainedly, and unreformedly a… Republican.


jorndoe March 10, 2025 at 13:18 #975066
More of this stuff coming, predicted for half a century as far as I remember:

Dark Factory: The completely automated factory of the future (4am Robotics)
Lights out (manufacturing) (Wikipedia)
Smart manufacturing (Wikipedia)

jorndoe March 11, 2025 at 05:07 #975280
Nifty.

Injected microbubbles could be a safe way to deliver emergency oxygen
[sup]— Albert McKeon · Boston Children's Hospital · Nov 25, 2024[/sup]

kazan March 11, 2025 at 06:11 #975287
Quoting Shawn
Keep em coming.


Have you heard of a variety of pig called "Mangalitza", probably Central European, around during the 30 year War 1630s-60s ish? Maybe the same as the later breed, similarish name and similar characteristics, the Poles claim to have bred in the 1800s?
You may have shown a pic of the "modern" variety in the last 9 yrs.

probably a silly question smile

DifferentiatingEgg March 11, 2025 at 13:02 #975323
Never really understood what was even remotely great about Seinfeld. I'd rather read Kant or Adorno...
Shawn March 11, 2025 at 13:14 #975324
Reply to kazan

Yes, it is an interesting pig. Very hairy and somewhat a little less aesthetically appealing as a Kune Kune pig.
T Clark March 11, 2025 at 18:14 #975371
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Never really understood what was even remotely great about Seinfeld. I'd rather read Kant or Adorno...


Are those our only choices?
DifferentiatingEgg March 11, 2025 at 18:35 #975382
Reply to T Clark No, just choices I find particularly painful... but still something worth my time over Seinfeld.
BC March 11, 2025 at 19:12 #975392
Reply to DifferentiatingEgg How can a show about "nothing" not be of interest to a philosopher?
DifferentiatingEgg March 11, 2025 at 21:34 #975429
Reply to BC I'm sure the show had its moments detailing occurrences and observations... but honestly, Curb Your Enthusiasm is just so much more my speed...
BC March 11, 2025 at 21:48 #975430
Reply to DifferentiatingEgg Is curbing one's enthusiasm a categorical imperative? There are times when it would make sense.

Seinfeld had some categorical imperatives that I can think of:

1) cinnamon babka is equal to or superior to chocolate babka. So, if the chocolate babka is sold out, no one has reason to complain if there is still cinnamon babka available.

2) a shoe string that touches the floor of a public toilet must be discarded.

3) if some old lady bought the last loaf of Jewish rye, and she won't give it up or sell it, then it's acceptable to just snatch it out of her hands and run.

I don't think I have ever seen Curb Your Enthusiasm. My TV watching has always been limited and there were only a few non-PBS shows I watched. Now I don't have a TV at all, and it's not missed (because YouTube).
DifferentiatingEgg March 12, 2025 at 00:00 #975455
Reply to BC Well, the nature of your question is too ambiguous in modern terms to be able to create a categorical imperative... a curb these days is often indicative of a higher plane. An upstep vs a speed bump or something to slow/retard. So is thw title saying upgrade your enthusiasm or retard it?

No TV here either. A desktop and monitor. A cell phone, lots of books, and exercise equipment.
Tom Storm March 12, 2025 at 01:27 #975508
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Never really understood what was even remotely great about Seinfeld.


Fair enough. I think it was innovative at the time. I always found the show annoying and unpleasant.
T Clark March 12, 2025 at 02:10 #975523
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
No TV here either. A desktop and monitor. A cell phone, lots of books, and exercise equipment.


It's clear you are a Renaissance Man.
DifferentiatingEgg March 12, 2025 at 02:29 #975528
Reply to T Clark I liked videogames growing up, but they got less and less good the more I got into philosophy, and if I'm gonna spend two and a half weeks of work on something it might as well be creative or health related. Not so much Renaissance (though not really sure wtf that means as there's too many contexts to relay the content clearly), more like bored and curious.
DifferentiatingEgg March 12, 2025 at 16:06 #975610
The mind is a tyrant in all plurality of the word.
Banno March 14, 2025 at 05:53 #975970
User image
Hanover March 14, 2025 at 19:12 #976093
Either I've gotten much smarter or newspaper crossword puzzles have gotten really dumbed down.

User image

15 minutes maybe.
jorndoe March 16, 2025 at 01:19 #976285
Assured distraction: How attacks on South Korea’s nuclear reactors could be a smoke screen for wider conflict
[sup]— Henry Sokolski · Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists · Mar 5, 2025[/sup]
Shawn March 17, 2025 at 08:24 #976470
Who has watched Fight Club and actually think it's really true about the US?
Hanover March 18, 2025 at 23:49 #976949
User image
Manwich Sloppy Joe. Yep, that's an onion roll.
kazan March 19, 2025 at 04:55 #976984
Quoting Hanover
Either I've gotten much smarter or newspaper crossword puzzles have gotten really dumbed down.


When you can regularly do similarly sized cryptic Xwords (composed by the same person) in similar time or less, then, perhaps, you can humbly ( yeah,yeah, but read on anyway) ask that question. And the answer will come to you as " I can read at least one person's mind but does that make me smarter than that person?" Or, "... does that make that person dumber than me?"
Just a possibility.

big Hano baiting smile

Metaphysician Undercover March 19, 2025 at 11:28 #977030
Quoting kazan
I can read at least one person's mind but does that make me smarter than that person?" Or, "... does that make that person dumber than me?"
Just a possibility.


Most likely that person is yourself, and that person is dumber than you. A possibility which is highly probable.
Shawn March 19, 2025 at 14:40 #977066
Pig?
unenlightened March 19, 2025 at 17:28 #977109
One-liner of the day:

Teslas pull to the right.
Outlander March 19, 2025 at 20:06 #977125
Lunch.

User image

Oven baked and seasoned Mahi-mahi with Spanish-style rice (Uncle Ben's 90 second pouch), and for some reason just to make it interesting mild salsa on the fish along with a can of V8. It's the cheap version of tomato or some other similar-spicy sauce often prepared with fish. Same thing really. Give or take.
frank March 20, 2025 at 16:33 #977270
Was pharmacy originally pronounced "p-harm-a-cy"?
DifferentiatingEgg March 21, 2025 at 01:15 #977395
Reply to Outlander At first I thought that was a burrito lol, not Mahi Mahi.

I just got done breaking my fast with 8oz salmon filet, seasoned with salt, pepper and lime. With sides of roasted tomatoes and brussel sprouts (both with salt pepper and lime), 12 ounces of bone "jelly," lightly heated back to a broth, and 2 slices of Swiss cheese, with 8 ounces of whey protein.

I mostly just came here to express how damn delicious roasted tomatoes are though... ugh, so good with a well cooked fish.
Fire Ologist March 21, 2025 at 03:27 #977426
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
how damn delicious roasted tomatoes are


Any size cherry tomatoes, and good fish - perfection!

For lunch the next day you grill it for a few minutes just to warm it…still great.
Jamal March 21, 2025 at 04:49 #977433
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
ugh, so good


A novel way of describing a delicious taste. Language evolution happening before our very eyes and under our very noses.

User image

The first shashlik of the year. I marinated it in yoghurt and onions and cooked it over birch embers. Served with a tomato and cucumber salad, Armenian bread, smetana, adjika, and satsebeli (none of which are pictured, because I'm a bad food photographer).
Metaphysician Undercover March 21, 2025 at 10:36 #977460
Quoting Jamal
cooked it over birch embers.


I'm not so keen on birch embers personally, the bark is smokey. Is that white or yellow birch?
DifferentiatingEgg March 21, 2025 at 11:22 #977464
Quoting Jamal
A novel way of describing a delicious taste.


There are steps for maximally enjoying of such a taste... *puts on a dunce ... er Chef's Hat, while raising his left hand and index finger*

1st. Cleanse the palate, with Grapefruit Bubly...

*raising his middle finger aside his index*

2nd. Gently exert pressure upon the salmon to seperate a flake. Scooping underneath the flake to not disturb its texture by puncturing with a fork, catch a scent by breathing in through the mouth and nose before placing the salmon on your tongue, a precursory tantilization of your taste receptors amplified through scent. The buttered velvet texture of the salmon; its warmth sensationally "melting" as the flake touches down from the cold metal utensil. So delicate, you can then crush the morsel with your tongue which highlights the accents of salt, pepper, and lime upon the mildy sweet, but rich Salmon.

*raising his ring finger in line with his index and middle, he closes his eyes briefly taking in a breath*

3rdly. Upon crushing the Salmon to extract the flavors and textures of the salmon, you ready a piece of roasted tomato—I recommend a whole half as it is pooled with acidic tomato concentrate—jettison the salmon to your stomach and savor for a moment, but before the savoring ends, stuff your mouth with half a roasted tomato... which contrasts the mildly sweet buttery velvet of the Salmon. The efficacy of the stark contrast overwhelms the palate releasing endorphins that send electricity down your spine.... (the ugh moment!).

*he aligns his pinky with the other three standing fingers.*

and 4th. After said cherubery we neutralize the palate with the bold and smokey stud from Brussels. The crispy crunch of the folded leaves brushing away the previous flavors, allowing for an easy cleansing of the palate with our Grapefruit Bubly...Rinse...Repeat...
Jamal March 21, 2025 at 11:46 #977467
Reply to DifferentiatingEgg

Fascinating. This was my favourite bit:

Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
you can then crush the morsel


And the moment I read this...

Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
The efficacy of the stark contrast overwhelms the palate releasing endorphins that send electricity down your spine.... (the ugh moment!).


...it all fell into place.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not so keen on birch embers personally, the bark is smokey. Is that white or yellow birch?


White. Quite smoky but not awful. Deal with it. Anyway, by the time you've got embers, smoke isn't a problem.
DifferentiatingEgg March 21, 2025 at 12:41 #977476
Reply to Fire Ologist I usually use vined tomato, but I suppose cherry's will work, do you cut them or leave them whole?
DifferentiatingEgg March 21, 2025 at 12:46 #977477
Quoting Jamal
Served with Smetana


Wait so you're a cannibal?! :nerd:

frank March 21, 2025 at 12:56 #977478
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not so keen on birch embers personally, the bark is smokey. Is that white or yellow birch?


Do you hit people with birch branches? I've heard that's fun.
frank March 21, 2025 at 13:14 #977483
@Hanover

Do you think the Republican party will revert back to its old self, or are the recent changes permanent?



Jamal March 21, 2025 at 13:44 #977488
Reply to DifferentiatingEgg

I also enjoy munching on a Pasternak (parsnip in Russian).
Hanover March 21, 2025 at 13:56 #977491
Quoting frank
Do you think the Republican party will revert back to its old self, or are the recent changes permanent?


Trumpianism will forever forward be the immutable truth.
Hanover March 21, 2025 at 13:57 #977492
Quoting Jamal
I also enjoy munching on a Pasternak (parsnip in Russian).


I thought the Pasternaks were your next door neighbors.
frank March 21, 2025 at 14:47 #977509
Quoting Hanover
Trumpianism will forever forward be the immutable truth.


If you're permanently a Democrat, what does that mean for progressives? Will it break the Democratic party in two?
Jamal March 21, 2025 at 14:55 #977514
Reply to Hanover

No, I've got the Pelmenis on one side and the Pierogis on the other.
T Clark March 21, 2025 at 14:59 #977516
Quoting Jamal
No, I've got the Pelmenis on one side and the Pierogis on the other.


You think you've got it bad. I live next to a cemetery.
Fire Ologist March 21, 2025 at 15:15 #977529
Reply to DifferentiatingEgg

Yes vined are better. I meant they are so good practically any type of small tomato will do, but vines are the current front runner.

We cut them in half, maybe leaving one or two whole for the occasional bigger blast of pure roasted tomato.
Jamal March 21, 2025 at 16:17 #977545
Reply to T Clark

Cadavers to the left of you, corpses to the right, there you are.
Outlander March 21, 2025 at 16:28 #977550
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
bone "jelly," lightly heated back to a broth


Bone jelly? I'm frightened. :scream:

I suppose if one had the mind to consume bones and set out to perform such a feat, jellification would perhaps be the best avenue. Odd world we live in. Odd indeed. :chin:
Hanover March 21, 2025 at 17:20 #977558
Quoting frank
If you're permanently a Democrat, what does that mean for progressives? Will it break the Democratic party in two?
In three. They'll be trifurcated.

DifferentiatingEgg March 21, 2025 at 17:47 #977562
Reply to Outlander slow boil down fish heads, chicken feet, and beef marrow bones with micronutrient dense veggies for 24 hours. When it cools it turns into a jelly.
frank March 21, 2025 at 18:06 #977567
Quoting Hanover
In three. They'll be trifurcated.


dammit
BC March 22, 2025 at 06:46 #977706
Reply to DifferentiatingEgg The local market sells chicken feet. I assumed they were either for broth, or a disturbing garnish for chicken salad sandwiches.
DifferentiatingEgg March 22, 2025 at 07:05 #977711
Reply to BC make sure to chop off the tips and remove the nails. People like eating them also, because they're chewy. Personally I hate chewy...

I remember trying "no-noodle" once... I like couldn't even chew through it after boiling it... it's a 0 calorie noodle lol. I was curious wtf it would even be like. All I could imagine was cthulhu coming out the other end...

Edit since last to remark here to add a new shout:

I picked up 3 books on nutrition to compliment my "Understanding Nutrition" book:

Eat, Drink, and Live a Healthy Life (Harvard medical guide to healthy eating) by Walter Willet

Nutrition Made Clear by Roberta Andings

Changing Body Composition through Diet and Exercise by Michael Ormsbee
kazan March 23, 2025 at 04:02 #977907
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Most likely that person is yourself, and that person is dumber than you. A possibility which is highly probable.


Everything is possible and by arranging one's expectations, everything can be probable.

quiet smile
kazan March 23, 2025 at 04:12 #977909
Quoting Jamal
Cadavers to the left of you, corpses to the right, there you are.


....stuck in the middle with us. Poor you.

wellwishing smile
Hanover March 23, 2025 at 13:02 #977998
When i was in the mob I'd affix severed chicken feet to the bottoms of my shoes to make it appear my mayhem was caused by a chicken.

Jamal March 23, 2025 at 13:18 #978001
Talking of feet, there were pig's trotters for sale at the butcher today. I've never used them before, but I'll get one to thicken and flavourize something quite soon.
T Clark March 23, 2025 at 14:58 #978021
Reply to Jamal
Ham hocks, which are similar, work really well in split pea soup.
Hanover March 23, 2025 at 15:01 #978022
Reply to Jamal Pickled pig's feet is a southern treat, although I've never eaten it. They are bright red for some reason. They would sell them in a big jar at convenience stores when I was young, before gas stations went all corporate. You could also get red pickled eggs. I never trusted their freshness
Hanover March 23, 2025 at 15:03 #978024
https://www.pickledstore.com/categories/pickled-pigs-feet.html
Jamal March 23, 2025 at 15:14 #978026
Quoting T Clark
Ham hocks, which are similar, work really well in split pea soup.


Good point. I used to make pea and ham soup with ham houghs (that's how we say and spell it in Scotland).

Reply to Hanover

I'd try them. Who needs freshness when they're pickled? as I always say.
Shawn March 23, 2025 at 16:29 #978044
The horror, the horror...

Feeling sorry for the pig.

:groan:
Shawn March 23, 2025 at 19:32 #978083
Google says 1.5 Billion pigs are killed a year. That's 3.8 Million a day.

Does taste or wanton hunger alone make this so?
javra March 23, 2025 at 20:42 #978087
Quoting Shawn
The horror, the horror...

Feeling sorry for the pig.


What's the difference between the pig and the chicken in a breakfast of ham and eggs? The chicken was only involved, but the pig was committed.
Hanover March 23, 2025 at 21:16 #978092
I once had cow foot soup. It had a lot of cartilage on it. My son bought it at the Korean supermarket so at least i didn't have to foot the bill.
Shawn March 23, 2025 at 23:38 #978116
Quoting javra
What's the difference between the pig and the chicken in a breakfast of ham and eggs? The chicken was only involved, but the pig was committed.


Scary... :fear:
javra March 23, 2025 at 23:42 #978118
Reply to Shawn Commitment ain't always all that bad of a thing. Whether to a cause or to a significant other. Better than being a chicken about it.

(If this needs explanation, my sense of continued dark humor. I'll let the chips fall where they may.)
Shawn March 23, 2025 at 23:44 #978120
Quoting javra
Commitment ain't always all that bad of a thing. Whether to a cause or to a significant other. Better than being a chicken about it.


I don't know; but, is this something you are trying to point out towards me, or in general what you have noticed about possibly other people?
javra March 23, 2025 at 23:51 #978124
Reply to Shawn No, no, no. Just a general joke thrown out there to a general audience. Thought it appropriate this being the shoutbox.

Nothing personal intended by it. Suddenly had a thought of Ms. Piggy. (Again, nothing personal.) And she was rather committed to Kermit. :grin:
Shawn March 23, 2025 at 23:59 #978127
Reply to javra

It would seem as though people are fairly committed to the things they believe in. Other people, like me, have to go through so much processing to commit to anything at all. It shouldn't be a long and laborious process; but, for some it is.

:chin:
javra March 24, 2025 at 00:05 #978131
Reply to Shawn Well, hey, you want to make this all philosophicalish and all? To get back to the breakfast of ham and eggs theme:

"Commitment in a relationship results in the death of ego, a death of ego that is proportional to that of the commitment."

My Jack Handey deep thought of the day. :grin:

----

"Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey" is a Saturday Night Live skit. I'm pretty sure the name has something to do with Bator as a Master. :razz: As a random example:



Shawn March 24, 2025 at 00:08 #978132
Quoting javra
"Commitment in a relationship results in the death of ego, a death of ego that is proportional to that of the commitment."


Some people think that marriage is an institution; but, then what's a relationship without marriage?
javra March 24, 2025 at 00:10 #978133
Quoting Shawn
Some people think that marriage is an institution; but, then what's a relationship without marriage?


I give up. What?
Shawn March 24, 2025 at 00:12 #978135
Quoting javra
I give up. What?


I think it has to do with friendship, methinks... heh

:naughty:
javra March 24, 2025 at 00:14 #978136
Reply to Shawn :grin: :up:
javra March 24, 2025 at 00:14 #978137
Reply to Shawn Plenty of marriages without that component.
Shawn March 24, 2025 at 00:18 #978140
Quoting javra
Plenty of marriages without that component.


From time to time its worth remembering that the sanctity of what is allowed (even by modern day terms) once married is something people have abused too often just by being friends.
Shawn March 24, 2025 at 00:24 #978142
I'd like to end this peaceful discussion with a short video showing the love of a sweet pig-mother. Even in such discomfort she seems happy:
Metaphysician Undercover March 24, 2025 at 11:19 #978193
Quoting Shawn
pig-mother


Commonly known as a "sow", which is pronounced differently from the verb "to sow", which is pronounced like "sew", or as we say "like so". You're probably thinking "so what?".
Shawn March 24, 2025 at 19:49 #978294
Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

Do you feel sorry for her? Such a pretty and nice sow.
frank March 24, 2025 at 22:53 #978340
The reason the Irish didn't supplement their diets with fish during the big famine was because the British had earlier suppressed the Irish fishing industry to help the British one.

There were small fishing outfits, but when the blight first hit, the fishermen pawned their nets to buy food. Then the blight went on for two more years, and they had no way to get the fish.

Somebody could have just given them some fishing equipment.
Metaphysician Undercover March 25, 2025 at 00:04 #978353
Quoting Shawn
Do you feel sorry for her?


No, she looks very happy with all those little piglets. What's there to feel sorry about?
BC March 25, 2025 at 00:39 #978364
Reply to Shawn Reply to Metaphysician Undercover Those piglets may be getting too big to suckle. Note that she isn't offering the children her teats. They probably have little sharp teeth by now. O U C H ! !
Shawn March 25, 2025 at 20:55 #978551
Reply to BC

Glad to see you here. Hope your doing well and enjoying life.

Regards.
BC March 26, 2025 at 00:28 #978612
Reply to Shawn Thanks, Shawn. The same to you.
Outlander March 26, 2025 at 18:10 #978767
I would like to draw special attention to this thread.

Apparently the poster, who has been here 2 years, has not posted in over a year, with the exception of this new thread not 20 minutes ago. What an occasion. Who knows what sparked this sudden re-invigoration of spirited interest?

It should be respected and contributed to by all with a mind to. Particularly the noble Count, as I find his postings to be incredibly concise and intelligent. Disturbingly so at times...
Hanover March 27, 2025 at 02:13 #978887
My most recent response from ChatGpt:

"So, in conclusion:
If the duchess sings in burp, the vicar may abdicate,
but not out of disgust— out of jealousy."

The culmination of human programming achievement used for nonsense.

Hanover - 1, AI - 0.
Hanover March 27, 2025 at 02:22 #978889
Mankind - 0, our lesser selves - 1 (especially the singing of the word "action").

Shawn March 27, 2025 at 02:52 #978892
Pig?
jorndoe March 27, 2025 at 04:29 #978905
Reply to Shawn, there are a few over here and here, but they're not as lovely as those you post. ;)
Shawn March 27, 2025 at 04:54 #978907
Reply to jorndoe

Haha, they oink at each other a lot. :grin:
DifferentiatingEgg March 27, 2025 at 23:11 #979070
A good way to discover someone's nature is to assist them in poisoning them against you. They either have the antidote or not.

I got the poison
I got the remedy
I got the...
The pressure, the pressure
Boom!
180 Proof March 28, 2025 at 07:59 #979141
@DifferentiatingEgg

re: "ontological realism" ...

After Finitude, Quentin Meillassoux
Joyful Cruelty, Clément Rosset
Ethics, Benedict Spinoza
javi2541997 March 28, 2025 at 09:55 #979162
Reply to 180 Proof I believe it is the first time I see you posting on The Shoutbox.
Outlander March 28, 2025 at 10:37 #979167
Reply to javi2541997

I was seconds away from posting the exact same thing (not now but earlier)! My sentiments exactly.

It's a curious psychological, if not emergent-ly philosophical question. Why did @180 Proof feel the need to "Shoutbox" something that could have easily otherwise been private messaged? Does he perhaps wish others to gain or ascertain knowledge or insight from his recommendations? Is this charity? Or decency? Or perhaps, does he simply believe anything he does or says is an act of such, perhaps stemming from arrogance? Or could he perhaps have judgements toward the person, such believing if he were to message him privately he would take this as a sign of willful engagement or desire to become friends, something he wishes to avoid, whether out of a busy schedule, or something far more aggrandizing? Ah, the possibilities here are indeed endless. What a soup of possibility to fathom this early morning. And some people settle for tea or coffee... ah, what a wonderful website and forum this is!
Moliere March 28, 2025 at 12:19 #979182
DifferentiatingEgg March 28, 2025 at 12:36 #979183
Reply to Outlander because I asked him to. Literally in another thread I said shoutbox me some books? as its the informal place and less personal than the inbox. Didn't want to talk about it too much in another thread, but I enjoy his insights. My b I guess? Though, your accusations show your true nature: resentment towards 180.
javi2541997 March 28, 2025 at 12:39 #979186
Quoting Outlander
ah, what a wonderful website and forum this is!


It’s lost some charm since @Arcane Sandwich was banned, but yes, it is a fine place. See you around sharing pics of your meals and complaining about my grammar.
Benkei March 28, 2025 at 13:17 #979193
Please note the updated rules of use on the website with respect to social media (no effect in this thread!): https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15864/were-banning-social-media-links/p1
T Clark March 28, 2025 at 15:12 #979222
Quoting Moliere
Bodies with Organs (but no brains)


From the article linked:

MIT Technology Review:Recent advances in biotechnology now provide a pathway to producing living human bodies without the neural components that allow us to think, be aware, or feel pain. Many will find this possibility disturbing, but if researchers and policymakers can find a way to pull these technologies together, we may one day be able to create “spare” bodies, both human and nonhuman.


In the words of Aristotle, or was it Donald Trump Jr. - What could possibly go wrong?
Benkei March 28, 2025 at 15:25 #979228
Reply to T Clark Imagine rich douchebags living forever.
T Clark March 28, 2025 at 15:31 #979231
Quoting Benkei
Imagine rich douchebags living forever.


Or very realistic sex dolls.
fdrake March 28, 2025 at 15:52 #979238
Reply to T Clark Reply to Benkei

Steve Jobs body pillow fleshbag. Powers combined.
DifferentiatingEgg March 28, 2025 at 16:05 #979244
MIT Technology Review:Recent advances in biotechnology now provide a pathway to producing living human bodies without the neural components that allow us to think, be aware, or feel pain.


Ontological realism baby. :strong:

Nietzsche BGE 17:So far as the superstitions of the logicians are concerned, I will never tire of emphasizing over and over again a small brief fact which these superstitious types are unhappy to concede - namely, that a thought comes when "it" wants to and not when "I" wish, so that it's a falsification of the facts to say that the subject "I" is the condition of the predicate "think." It thinks: but that this "it" is precisely that old, celebrated "I" is, to put it mildly, only an assumption, an assertion, in no way an "immediate certainty." After all, we've already done too much with this "it thinks": this "it" already contains an interpretation of the event and is not part of the process itself. Following grammatical habits we conclude here as follows: "Thinking is an activity. To every activity belongs someone who does the action, therefore -." With something close to this same pattern, the older atomists, in addition to the "force" which created effects, also looked for that clump of matter where the force was located, out of which it worked - the atom. Stronger heads finally learned how to cope without this "remnant of earth," and perhaps one day people, including even the logicians, will also grow accustomed to cope without that little "it" (to which the honourable old "I" has reduced itself).
Outlander March 28, 2025 at 21:04 #979338
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
I enjoy his insights.


As I'm sure many do, myself included.

Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
My b I guess? Though, your accusations show your true nature: resentment towards 180.


Actually, I found his odd "visit" to our little Shoutbox to be both serendipitous and delightful; simply, as javi mentioned, it was unusual and not something he often does, is all. The rest of the post was half-serious (at best) and meant solely to spur a few moments of idle thought to one's self. That's pretty much what most all Shoutbox postings are, come to think of it. I guess it's my fault. After all, "musings" are supposed to be, you know, amusing. Apparently mine were not. I'll try to be more interesting next time.

Quoting javi2541997
See you around sharing pics of your meals and complaining about my grammar.


Are you certain that was me? I remember when that was going on and it was making you upset, but I'm fairly certain I was not one of those individuals in question. Perhaps I was replying as to "why some people look down on others for improper grammar" in a purely logistical way absent of any personal opinion of my own. That's something I would do. Certainly not one-dimensional criticism for criticism sake. Not me, not ever! :halo:
javi2541997 March 28, 2025 at 22:30 #979349
Reply to Outlander You and the others. At least I don't use AI to write my posts, not like most folks. The worst thing comes with a short story competition. Folks rant about how I write because I use present and past in the same paragraph, but they are the same ones who use AI LLMs to write a short story. Pathetic!

Look, it works this way: I think you are not bilingual, and if you are, I guess you could understand me better. We think, dream, write, imagine, etc. in our native language. It is like something intrinsic to our knowledge. My nightmares are always in Spanish, and if you ask me to explain them to you, I think it will be nearly impossible. I will do my best, sure. I will type each word that comes from my subconscious mind without using AI LLMs because that's pathetic. You will start complaining about my grammar, and that's right. But mate, it is not my fault that English is actually a soulless language. It is not poetic. I am typing this reply to you, and I feel like I am doing an exam rather than expressing myself.

You and your mates feel superior because a kid doesn't know how to correctly write in English. Be careful; you don't know how the tables could turn in the future. Now Anglo-Saxons are ruling out the way of talking and speaking on the internet, but these things don't last forever. Imagine refusing to read Cervantes or Casares because their works are not well enough translated, instead of making the effort of learning other languages or at least finding out what the author wanted to say.
*Sigh* how many interesting things the Anglo-Saxons are missing outside their English archipelago.

Important users got banned for justifiable reasons, but I wonder what would happen if we discovered that those cocky boys actually use AI LLMs to write their posts. Imagine I paint graffiti that says "Nonce", but you don't get what it means, so you could be happy because it could be a non-hurtful word. That's the way you interpret it. Well, this happens the same when a non-native speaker tries to express their feelings in another language.
Outlander March 28, 2025 at 23:02 #979354
Reply to javi2541997

I agree with 100% of everything you've said, except for one crucial detail I will put in the form of a challenge.

Show me the post where I did anything of the sort. I'm sorry to say but I don't believe one exists. I recall, vividly, the scenario and goings on you describe. But, I simply was not involved. Not in the capacity or context you describe, I'm afraid.

Also, I don't have "mates" here. Not really. I take it as an anonymous discussion forum. Things are safer and less complicated that way. In my half decade of membership here, I think I've PMed Jamal once about a business thing, Hanover to try to bum free legal advice off him, and @Cartesian trigger-puppets because I found his username interesting and wished to inquire as to whether or not he (or she) is alive (to no avail, I might add). Sure, I'll praise people who I deem to be praiseworthy, but that is done entirely in observable, public eye.

That said, it's best to let bygones be bygones. Water under the bridge flows like none other. I just wish to correct your mis-association of the events (and perhaps ordeal) you've experienced and the seeing of my username, wholly in the spirit of advancing your best interests as well as those of mine. :grin:
Hanover March 29, 2025 at 00:20 #979375
Quoting javi2541997
But mate, it is not my fault that English is actually a soulless language. It is not poetic.


Poetry comes from the soul, though, not the language, and your soul is Spanish. That's all that is.
javi2541997 March 29, 2025 at 07:43 #979478
Reply to Outlander What an interesting answer. I wish I could find the old saying in English that goes something like “stirring the pot” or “throwing stones from a glass house". I mean, you appear to be innocent, but you are just pretending.

When @Arcane Sandwich was banned, I said to Jamal how sad I felt because I believe we lost a great user. Furthermore, he holds a PhD in philosophy and wrote interesting books. Someone asked me for those books, and you replied (without my consent): I wouldn't say it's quite out of the realm of possibility javi was merely entranced by words and stories that were, shall we say, a tad less than factual. You'd be surprised how mundane and simple the things are for some to get entertainment from.

How dare you disrespect the works of others? Now, I get it. You feel this is an anonymous place, so you log in and spread a lot of nonsense because nobody will be mad with you in real life after all. We don't even know your real name, so you play in that way. You want to be as anonymous as possible, fine. Yet I believe you should understand that some guys are actually real on both this website and in life. @Arcane Sandwich was not a liar or "troll". I talk with him almost every day, and I am amazed at the high level of knowledge he has. What is worse? Hiding oneself in a mask (user) to rant over others or being your real self, not caring about the consequences? Because I met real psychopaths here. They love to post things with the aim of showing off their animosity. But what do they win with this? Something like a climax?

The same happened when Trump was shot at the rally. You claimed that those things "only happen" in places like Madrid. I asked you why you believe that, but I didn't receive any answer. I guess your animosity towards Spanish-speaking nations is what makes you think that nonsense thing. Or it could be also the fact that you think that the violence problems of Mexico also exist in Argentina, Uruguay or Spain. Yet my point is that you didn't say those things only happen in places like Oslo. When it really happened in 2010 with that crazy neo-Nazi.

We can do the experiment: If I tell you, I heard in the news that a psycho murderer killed a group of teenagers, but I can't recall whether it was in Madrid or Oslo. Your biased mind would quickly think, It happened in Madrid, sure!

But it actually happened in Oslo...

So, what will you say now? That I am still misinterpreting you. :roll:


T Clark March 29, 2025 at 15:26 #979523
Deleted
javi2541997 March 29, 2025 at 17:25 #979533
Reply to T Clark It is important to expose them. So I believe they will think twice about writing bollocks.
DifferentiatingEgg March 29, 2025 at 19:37 #979549
Reply to Outlander Fair enough, hard to tell tone on the internet, doubly hard when your message didn't seem all that friendly. My b again. Though, I suppose I should say I'm glad I was wrong, Ressentiment's good for nobody.
Shawn March 29, 2025 at 19:53 #979554
Pig?
Hanover March 29, 2025 at 20:47 #979560
A stampede of hate stammered down the mountain onto the town below but was quenched by the icy river of Stompholeus that ran just beneath it, its flow regulated by Tompoleus, the keeper of the spigot.

The falcons let loose by the mountain dwellers ahigh plucked at his eyes to stop the regulation, but he shooed them away with his iron rod forged from the remains of lost one legged prosthetics.

The hate was abated til that one fateful day he laid down his duties to purchase himself an overstuffed chair so abundant at his nearby Rooms 2 Go.

The hate filled the city and saturated all souls, so now they have no way to distinguish themselves from the dwellers ahigh.

True story.
Shawn March 29, 2025 at 21:43 #979563
Quoting Hanover
True story.


Is it a story about a herd of pigs?
Hanover March 29, 2025 at 22:55 #979571
Quoting Shawn
it a story about a herd of pigs?


From the smoke and the thunder ahigh on the mountain decreed the Almighty who delivered the hatred expecting it halted from the frozen Stompholeus that all was disaster from the failings of Tompoleus.

To remedy the error of mortals incompetent, he sent forth the porcine with direction unyielding to vanquish the stampeding of evil and hate. Without hesitation and appetites boundless, the servants so holy dined and digested all hatred and evil.

The land all now purged and clean and protected, the porcine infantry perfectly accomplished turned tail and returned to its lair.

Said this the Almighty to all who may hear that now the pigs all heroic, "Protect this the great creature from this day eternal, never eating its meat nor tasting its milk!"

And henceforth forever that commandment is chiseled, the pork is unkosher and never digested.

So, yepper, that was a story about pigs. Hard to tell from part one, but this part clarifies.
Moliere March 29, 2025 at 23:16 #979573
Reply to Hanover Amen. :pray:
Moliere March 29, 2025 at 23:34 #979576
Reply to T Clark Reply to Benkei Reply to T Clark Reply to fdrake Reply to DifferentiatingEgg

The most disturbing thought that comes to mind is that the nervous system is so unnecessary that the BodyWithOrgans/not-brain is sentient in its own way

Not like flowers have nervous systems, yeah? And if the problem of consciousness is a problem not just for the human species....
Shawn March 29, 2025 at 23:43 #979578
Reply to Hanover

Do tell the story of the herd getting their revenge for eating the unkosher meat...?
DifferentiatingEgg March 29, 2025 at 23:44 #979579
Reply to Moliere Perhaps, though I'd like to see where this leads in regards to those who are comatose? It seems like, to me, a bodyoid would perhaps be similar to a brain-dead state of comatose.
Moliere March 29, 2025 at 23:59 #979580
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
though I'd like to see where this leads in regards to those who are comatose? It seems like, to me, a bodyoid would perhaps be similar to a brain-dead state of comatose.


There's a similarity there, but I'm not tempted to universalize based on that.

But, yes, this technology -- supposing it's possible -- questions those sorts of conceptual boundaries.
frank March 30, 2025 at 00:02 #979582
Quoting javi2541997
Furthermore, he holds a PhD in philosophy and wrote interesting books.


He was retarded though.
T Clark March 30, 2025 at 01:30 #979592
Quoting Moliere
The most disturbing thought that comes to mind is that the nervous system is so unnecessary that the BodyWithOrgans/not-brain is sentient in its own way

Not like flowers have nervous systems, yeah? And if the problem of consciousness is a problem not just for the human species....


I think you’re applying much more nuance and subtlety than this issue deserves or requires. This ain’t rocket philosophy.
DifferentiatingEgg March 30, 2025 at 01:55 #979594
Reply to Moliere For sure, I mostly mean it's hard for me to tell because it's not my field of expertise. Would need to know more about the science of bodyoids and bodies without a brain and how they function to make the call.
Hanover March 30, 2025 at 02:52 #979596
Quoting Shawn
Do tell the story of the herd getting their revenge for eating the unkosher meat...?


The sows and boars full returning all in glory but still humbling in their victory sacred pursuing
The demons up above them peering down on their returning, planning the unholy for quenching their black dark hunger
They pounce with unexpectation upon the squealing running hiding
Ripping clawing chewing drinking the deep dark flesh and nectar forbidden
Dancing wild naked chanting "Heaven's soldiers all a fallen!" consuming and digesting into the Beast's full belly.

The ground suddenly shaking cracking, the demons not a noticing
Their noses shrinking forming their haunches bending stooping
Snouts and tails emerging, the souls of the departed now fully rebirthing in the vessels of the evil
The pigs finally reappearing destined to live forever, in the bodies of the forsaken who thought they'd survive defying.
T Clark March 30, 2025 at 03:37 #979599
Reply to Hanover
You forgot “true story.”
kazan March 30, 2025 at 08:10 #979618
Quoting Hanover
reason. They would sell them in a big jar at convenience stores when I was young, before gas stations went all corporate. You could also get red pickled eggs. I never trusted their freshness


Precooked pigs' trotters are pleasant cold for lunch when traveling.Wrap the bones for the next day's travel and put them 100 yds away to attract the flies when one stops for an outside fly(almost) free lunch.
Just a suggestion.

smile
Hanover March 30, 2025 at 11:19 #979625
My son made a soup of calf foot. I could taste its last step taken, consisting of trepidation with hints of resignation.
frank March 30, 2025 at 14:02 #979644
A woman had a stroke and it changed her personality so she was an asshole all the time. The mute, nice person inside stares out of her eyeballs as she treats everyone like crap.
T Clark March 30, 2025 at 14:25 #979647
Quoting frank
A woman had a stroke and it changed her personality so she was an asshole all the time. The mute, nice person in


I’ve never had a stroke, so I guess I have no excuse.
frank March 30, 2025 at 14:53 #979654
Quoting T Clark
I’ve never had a stroke, so I guess I have no excuse.


It's ok.
Hanover March 30, 2025 at 15:13 #979658


If our personalities are determined by brain blood flow, we shouldn't criticize. Blood flow is beyond our control. Some have strokes of good luck, others not.



Hanover March 30, 2025 at 15:17 #979660
Quoting kazan
Precooked pigs' trotters are pleasant cold for lunch when traveling.Wrap the bones for the next day's travel and put them 100 yds away to attract the flies when one stops for an outside fly(almost) free lunch.
Just a suggestion.


I bet you could catch a catfish on a pigfoot baited hook.
Outlander March 30, 2025 at 19:51 #979713
Quoting javi2541997
I mean, you appear to be innocent, but you are just pretending.


Well, show us the post then. Do so successfully, and I'll never post here again. I'll offer that in exchange. Do you know why? Because I know it doesn't exist!

Burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused. At least, in countries that have more people trying to get in than people trying to get out.

Quoting javi2541997
I wouldn't say it's quite out of the realm of possibility javi was merely entranced by words and stories that were, shall we say, a tad less than factual. You'd be surprised how mundane and simple the things are for some to get entertainment from.

How dare you disrespect the works of others?


What are you talking about? This is just more proof of you being wild and reactionary. "I wouldn't say it's impossible someone lies about themself online" is a very rational and common belief to hold. There's nothing being disrespected, only a reminder given that just because someone says they're something online, doesn't make it true. If in this (atypical and unusual) scenario the person is everything they say, then that's that. But you can't twist things around like the very act of reminding people to take what people say about themselves online with a grain of salt (to be skeptical and careful), as if it were some negative, foolish, or worse, disrespectful, thing is just... out of touch with modern reality.

Quoting javi2541997
The same happened when Trump was shot at the rally. You claimed that those things "only happen" in places like Madrid.


Oh yeah, I remember that. Guilty as charged. It was nothing personal, I've never been to Madrid. Just wanted to mention/invoke the idea of a random small European country that has assassinations going on and that's just what happened to have came to mind. Could've easily said Bosnia or Slovakia or something.

Man, do you hang on to the most minor, insignificant details in a major, significant way and for a very large period of time. Good memory at least. You should become a detective. I'll be more cautious in the future when I post knowing you're around.

Quoting javi2541997
I guess your animosity towards Spanish-speaking nations is what makes you think that


Again, you keep making up things. First, how I "disrespected" a "work" that I didn't even really believe existed at the time, and now this. Why do you do these things?

You're clearly on a hair trigger when it comes to certain topics and subjects. That's fine. I don't have animosity towards Spanish-speaking nations. But I will admit, I, and anyone who enjoys life, has a respect for travel advisories issued by the State Department, as well as cold, hard crime statistics. Both of which have nothing to do with "animosity", bias, prejudice, or anything of the sort.

Pick-pocketing is common in Latin American countries. That's a non-debate and internationally recognized fact. That shouldn't equate to "Latin Americans are thieves", just that, yes, as far as crimes, which can happen at any place at any time, that is a common crime that one might find themselves fallen victim to in Latin American countries if they aren't careful.

If the U.S. government is lying to me, the statistics are made up, whatever, than that's that. Not my fault, nothing to do with me personally. But until that's proven, I'm going to believe what the State Department, its various travel alerts, and general crime statistics have to say as fact; facts that can save my life or end up costing me it if not heeded.

Quoting javi2541997
So, what will you say now?


I will say, rather remind you, of what I said from the beginning. Once again, I never "complained" about your grammar, despite you accusing me of having done so. You slandered and defamed me with a false accusation, whether or not you believe it or not (therefore making it not a "lie" technically) it remains as a false accusation. In front of all these nice people. And I don't know why.

Where's my apology? :grin:
(just kidding)

I think at best the closest was when you were clearly becoming upset and made a thread (or series of posts) as to why some people do (complain about grammar), and I summarily gave a list of the most common reasons and rationale as to why people do. Quite literally, you asked, and received. I'm not sure why you're punishing me for my participation in a conversation you initiated.

I'm not trying to turn quite literally nothing (an honest mistaken on your part) into something. So I won't. But yeah. Your version of events simply did not occur. I've never attacked someone here personally (certainly not you at least). Ideas? I attack ideas all the time, we all do; that's the point of philosophy. We attack the ideas and beliefs of people, not the person itself. I pride myself on following that golden rule, so, being accused of violating it is, annoying? It's annoying. But I've no time for petty squabbles, certainly those not rooted in truth that reflect no accuracy and have no bearing on the world around us.

You made an honest mistake and I forgive you. I'm your friend, not your enemy. Please remember that.
javi2541997 March 30, 2025 at 20:58 #979729
Reply to Outlander You keep playing the same game.

Your reply hasn't done anything but try to show you are the nicest dude here, and I am the hysterical one.

It is not the first time I read the argument "Show us the post then, and I will never post again." You will not do it so, mate. You can't live without the climax of login TPF and rant about whatever (apart from showing your weird meals on the same dish always).

Since you are insisting that @Arcane Sandwich could be a liar, I have the urge to share with you his works and shut your mouth. He even wrote some papers in English. I tell you this because I am very aware that you will not make any effort if they are in Spanish. Enjoy, mate: Publications: Martin Orensanz.
Look at how many interesting things he actually wrote. I am sure those papers took him a lot of time and effort. Is it now more plausible to you?

About Madrid: But you still have no answer to my question. Why did Madrid (or any random small European city) come to your mind when the shot at the rally happened? If you have never been here, why do you have that kind of prejudice? It is weird since you are the one who lives in a country where guns are legal.

The U.S. government says blah blah about these nations and the others...
I know this is a hard pill to swallow, but did you know that Spain, Argentina, Uruguay or Chile are actually safer than many states of your country? If you ask me: Javi, where do you want to go? Montevideo or Detroit? I would be crazy if I chose Detroit over Montevideo.

Quoting Outlander
You made an honest mistake and I forgive you. I'm your friend, not your enemy. Please remember that.


*Proceeds to stab me in the stomach with his knife*
Metaphysician Undercover March 30, 2025 at 22:03 #979733
Reply to Outlander
Please keep it down, this is the shout room. I can't handle anything more than a few paragraphs per post.
Shawn March 30, 2025 at 22:12 #979736
So much shouting!
Shawn March 30, 2025 at 22:12 #979737
The pigs are even growing concerned.
T Clark March 30, 2025 at 23:32 #979754
Deleted
Hanover March 31, 2025 at 02:16 #979774
Quoting T Clark
Deleted


The sound of silence.

frank March 31, 2025 at 13:44 #979847
50% of all 50 percenters think 30% is too low for 25% of the 10 percenters. 60% of the 100 percenters say that 5% of the 0 percenters are 35% more likely to be 56% over the established guidelines at least 44% of the time.
Shawn March 31, 2025 at 13:45 #979849
Reply to frank

Yes; but, how many woodchucks does it take to wood chuck wood?
frank March 31, 2025 at 14:37 #979857
Reply to Shawn correct.
T Clark April 01, 2025 at 17:27 #980061
I'm having a problem with my Philosophy Forum pages. I think it's probably with my computer - Windows 11, but I thought I'd check. If I set the front page to a good font size, actual posts are much larger. This is not a problem elsewhere on the web or on my computer in general.

Anyone else had this problem?
Hanover April 02, 2025 at 01:10 #980125
Quoting T Clark
Anyone else had this problem?


I've only noticed my posts getting better. But I'm sure you've noticed that as well
Shawn April 02, 2025 at 01:17 #980127
Reply to Hanover

Yes, because they are about pigs. See?
T Clark April 02, 2025 at 01:18 #980128
Quoting Hanover
I've only noticed my posts getting better. But I'm sure you've noticed that as well


Yes, I have noticed that. I think your status as a moderator has given your words a new power, authority, and dignity.
Noble Dust April 02, 2025 at 04:34 #980144
Reply to T Clark

The solution is to get a mac.
T Clark April 02, 2025 at 05:46 #980153
Quoting Noble Dust
The solution is to get a mac


Nice to hear from the peanut gallery.

Speaking of which - The phrase peanut gallery originally came from from a television show for children back in the 50s - Howdy Doody. My brother and I were actually on the show, in the peanut gallery, once when we were visiting New York City with my mother.

And that’s the name of that tune.
Noble Dust April 02, 2025 at 05:55 #980154
Reply to T Clark

I'm enjoying imagining little peanut Clarky all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed eating popcorn on the side of a sound stage somewhere in midtown. It feels poetically correct.

In other news, I just did a budget for the first time in, like, my life.

I'm fucked.
DifferentiatingEgg April 02, 2025 at 11:12 #980184
Apparently, anesthetics do NOT act by chemical effects but by quantum interactions, namely van der Waals forces between electron clouds, e.g., filled electron outer shells in anesthetics, and pi resonance orbitals in aromatic amino acid rings in microtubules.

Anesthetics act in quantum channels in brain microtubules to prevent consciousness
T Clark April 02, 2025 at 16:21 #980239
Quoting Noble Dust
eating popcorn on the side of a sound stage


Howdy Doody was sponsored by Hostess, so we were given Hostess Snowballs to eat. Red if I remember correctly.

User image

While looking for that picture on-line, I learned the correct spelling is "Snoball."
Hanover April 02, 2025 at 18:10 #980256
Quoting T Clark
Speaking of which - The phrase peanut gallery originally came from from a television show for children back in the 50s - Howdy Doody. My brother and I were actually on the show, in the peanut gallery, once when we were visiting New York City with my mother.


The term predates Howdy Doody. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_gallery

When I came to America at the turn of the century, I was fully invested in the vaudeville culture, performing burlesque nightly, but I eventually lost out to radio. I mention that because that is where "peanut gallery" comes from. When Howdy Doody stole that word from me, it was really all I had left, so I filed suit against them and everyone who had been on the show. I gave you a pass because I prophesized our eventual meeting and thought it would be awkward eventually.

I did sue your brother, and that resulted in a bitter fued between us. We didn't talk for a good number of years. When I traveled with him to Amsterdam later in life, we somewhat buried the hatchet, but he became angry at me for adopting stories about you and applying them to me. He felt it a bizarre sort of intrusive sense of humor, feeling too familiar and creepy.

True story.




Hanover April 02, 2025 at 18:17 #980258
Quoting Noble Dust
In other news, I just did a budget for the first time in, like, my life.


The way you budget is you keep in your mind about how high you can allow your credit card to go. Once it gets there, you stop ordering socks and soap dispensers and other random shit off Amazon at 3:00 a.m. Once the bill gets paid, you can go back to ordering. Nothing is more exciting than a box sitting next to the door and trying to remember what you ordered.
Shawn April 02, 2025 at 19:29 #980263
Reply to DifferentiatingEgg

Awesome research. :up:
Hanover April 02, 2025 at 19:43 #980268
Quoting frank
50% of all 50 percenters think 30% is too low for 25% of the 10 percenters. 60% of the 100 percenters say that 5% of the 0 percenters are 35% more likely to be 56% over the established guidelines at least 44% of the time.


DifferentiatingEgg April 02, 2025 at 20:22 #980274
Reply to Shawn What I find interesting is that it supports a quantum theory of consciousness.
frank April 02, 2025 at 21:45 #980291
J April 03, 2025 at 00:26 #980316
Reply to DifferentiatingEgg How I wish this was established science. But no, Hameroff is the same guy Roger Penrose partnered with when exploring the "microtubule" theory of consciousness, and it's extremely iffy. A quick blurb here includes a "Criticism" section that explains the problems.
DifferentiatingEgg April 03, 2025 at 04:54 #980349
Reply to J Nice catch, wasn't sure wtf to make of it. More or less the guy is biased and attempting to bend the science to his perspective.
frank April 03, 2025 at 12:11 #980395
The smaller the dog, the louder the bark.
frank April 03, 2025 at 12:12 #980396
The denser the fog, the more cars crash
frank April 03, 2025 at 12:14 #980397
Slowing down in the fog is like eating spaghetti without the meatballs
J April 03, 2025 at 12:33 #980399
Reply to DifferentiatingEgg That's how it looks to me, though I'm no scientist. And two cheers for Penrose, by the way -- he may be way off base with microtubules, but he has extraordinary intuitions that have proved correct, and someday we may learn that consciousness would be impossible without quantum-level explanations.
Shawn April 03, 2025 at 13:03 #980403
Pig?
BC April 04, 2025 at 00:57 #980501
Reply to Shawn

User image

But when and why did pigs start wearing wigs?
Noble Dust April 04, 2025 at 02:42 #980516
Reply to frank

The denser the meatball, the more dog used.
Hanover April 04, 2025 at 11:42 #980572
Reply to BC Piggly Wiggly invented the modern supermarket. The aisles, carts, checkout lines, all pig technology.
T Clark April 04, 2025 at 14:22 #980597
Quoting Hanover
Piggly Wiggly invented the modern supermarket. The aisles, carts, checkout lines, all pig technology.


James Rouse, who's company is well known for redeveloping downtown landmarks as shopping malls, e.g. Faneuil Hall Market Place and Quincy Market in Boston, created what is claimed to be the first shopping center - Talbot Town - in Easton Maryland, where I was born, in the 1950s. Both the shopping center opening and my birth took place in the 1950s. I'm slightly older.
Hanover April 04, 2025 at 17:24 #980624
Quoting T Clark
Charles Rouse, who's company is well known for redeveloping downtown landmarks as shopping malls, e.g. Faneuil Hall Market Place and Quincy Market in Boston, created what is claimed to be the first shopping center - Talbot Town - in Easton Maryland, where I was born, in the 1950s. Both the shopping center opening and my birth took place in the 1950s. I'm slightly older.


"Piggly Wiggly was the first self-service grocery store.[5] It was founded by Clarence Saunders on September 6, 1916"

"At the time of its founding, grocery stores did not allow customers to gather their goods. Instead, a customer would give a list of items to a clerk, who would then collect them throughout the store. Piggly Wiggly introduced the innovation of allowing customers to go through the store, gathering their goods."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggly_Wiggly

Your reference is to "shopping centers," which sounds like a strip mall, the eyesore that eventually swept the nation. It seems you were a part of its founding, perhaps the actual cause. Good work.
T Clark April 04, 2025 at 18:30 #980635
Quoting Hanover
Your reference is to "shopping centers," which sounds like a strip mall, the eyesore that eventually swept the nation. It seems you were a part of its founding, perhaps the actual cause. Good work.


You’re welcome.

By the way, James [not Charles] Rouse was Edward Norton’s grandfather.

Hanover April 04, 2025 at 22:19 #980664
Quoting T Clark
By the way, James [not Charles] Rouse was Edward Norton’s grandfather.


Brackets indicate an insertion of words not contained in a quoted statement. Parenthesis would be correct here.
T Clark April 04, 2025 at 23:06 #980670
Quoting Hanover
Parenthesis would be correct here.


By the way, James [not parenthesis] Rouse was Edward Norton’s grandfather.

T Clark April 04, 2025 at 23:07 #980672
Quoting Hanover
Brackets indicate an insertion of words not contained in a quoted statement. Parenthesis would be correct here.


Quoting T Clark
By the way, James [not parenthesis] Rouse was Edward Norton’s grandfather.


And people complain about the quality of the posts on the forum these days.
Outlander April 04, 2025 at 23:48 #980684
Reply to Hanover

That's your culture and your people's take on how the world should work and how those in it should live. Stop trying to push your beliefs on other people. *emotional, seething gasp/sigh* YOU ALWAYS DO THIS...!! :angry:
Hanover April 05, 2025 at 00:42 #980691
Quoting Outlander
That's your culture and your people's take on how the world should work and how those in it should live. Stop trying to push your beliefs on other people. *emotional, seething gasp/sigh* YOU ALWAYS DO THIS...!! :angry:


This suggests a culture other than mine exists, which is pretty ridic.
Hanover April 05, 2025 at 01:04 #980695
Reply to T Clark If I wanted to quote this: "By the way, James [not parenthesis] Rouse was Edward Norton’s grandfather," I'd have to say, Clarky says, "By the way, James [not parenthesis] Rouse was Edward Norton’s grandfather." (Brackets in the original). Otherwise you would think i added it and not you.

It can get really tricky.

T Clark April 05, 2025 at 02:12 #980700
Quoting Hanover
It can get really tricky


Sorry to make things difficult.
T Clark April 05, 2025 at 02:14 #980701
Quoting Outlander
That's your culture and your people's take on how the world should work and how those in it should live. Stop trying to push your beliefs on other people. *emotional, seething gasp/sigh* YOU ALWAYS DO THIS...!!


Yikes! Is this a joke?
Hanover April 05, 2025 at 02:40 #980702
Quoting T Clark
Yikes! Is this a joke?


Of course
DifferentiatingEgg April 05, 2025 at 02:41 #980703
We're all =_@%'n idiots, don't forget about the root of the word: idios—"one's own." :smile:
T Clark April 05, 2025 at 03:44 #980707
Quoting Hanover
Of course


I’m not so sure. You know those damn Jews and their obsession with punctuation.
Shawn April 05, 2025 at 18:57 #980789
Pig?
Shawn April 05, 2025 at 18:58 #980790
Sometimes I just want to sit down and relax.

Are you people standing up while posting?
Paine April 05, 2025 at 20:09 #980803
Reply to Shawn
I take turns. My standing desk is the preferred location.
Noble Dust April 05, 2025 at 21:48 #980819
Quoting Shawn
Are you people standing up while posting?


Always. It's the principle of the thing. Slight crouch, straight back, defensive position, but ready to strike.
DifferentiatingEgg April 05, 2025 at 22:53 #980824
Reply to Noble Dust See, I'm squatting, ready to "strike" to release that intestinal fury from deep within.
Shawn April 06, 2025 at 00:10 #980840
User image

Pig?
Metaphysician Undercover April 06, 2025 at 00:25 #980846
Reply to Shawn

I'm going to call that little piggy "Big Ears".
Here Big Ears! Can you hear me?
Shawn April 06, 2025 at 00:31 #980848
Heh, yes, he or she is quite happy.
DifferentiatingEgg April 06, 2025 at 01:04 #980856
"Although colloquia and books on Nietzsche have multiplied at a prodigious rate, one of the main characteristics of such activities in Rosset's view is that instead of attempting to understand Nietzsche's thought on its own terms, they have invariably led to the annexation of his work..." David F. Bell on Clément Rosset :cool:


T Clark April 06, 2025 at 01:56 #980863
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
instead of attempting to understand Nietzsche's thought on its own terms, they have invariably led to the annexation of his work


I think that’s mostly true for every philosopher.
T Clark April 06, 2025 at 01:57 #980864
Reply to DifferentiatingEgg
I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
DifferentiatingEgg April 06, 2025 at 03:05 #980874
Reply to T Clark When you want to understand math, you don't first create your own...
T Clark April 06, 2025 at 03:24 #980876
April

Frost

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

Simon

April, come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May, she will stay
Resting in my arms again
June, she'll change her tune
In restless walks she'll prowl the night

Eliot

April is the cruelest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain.


Hanover April 06, 2025 at 04:42 #980883
Reply to T Clark April showers brought the Mayflower, but it hit a glacier and killed Leonardo Dicaprio.

True story.
Hanover April 06, 2025 at 23:33 #981057
Wrote this poem:

The taste of her lips still upon him as he glanced out the windows at her mangled body upon the tree limbs twisted, landed there from the car wrong turn too quickly.

He climbed to her tree grave, mouth hanging open wide, wiping her taste from himself and putting it back upon her.

She is again compete, and can be buried with lip taste intact.

Thoughts?
T Clark April 07, 2025 at 02:40 #981073
Quoting Hanover
The taste of her lips still upon him as he glanced out the windows at her mangled body upon the tree limbs twisted, landed there from the car wrong turn too quickly.

He climbed to her tree grave, mouth hanging open wide, wiping her taste from himself and putting it back upon her.

She is again compete, and can be buried with lip taste
in


Quoting Hanover
Thoughts?


Similar themes from different sources.

Robert Frost

“Here, take a tree-top, I'll get down another.
Hold on with all your might when I let go.'
I said I had the tree. It wasn't true.
The opposite was true. The tree had me.
The minute it was left with me alone
It caught me up as if I were the fish
And it the fishpole. So I was translated
To loud cries from my brother of 'Let go!
Don't you know anything, you girl? Let go!'
But I, with something of the baby grip
Acquired ancestrally in just such trees
When wilder mothers than our wildest now
Hung babies out on branches by the hands
To dry or wash or tan, I don't know which,
(You'll have to ask an evolutionist)-
I held on uncomplainingly for life.”

Mother Goose

“Rock a bye baby on the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all.“

Joyce Kilmer

“I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like [@Hanover]
But only God can make a tree.”


Punshhh April 07, 2025 at 07:06 #981096
BLACK MONDAY, IS TO BE RENAMED ORANGE MONDAY!
fdrake April 07, 2025 at 07:34 #981098
Reply to Punshhh

It's like an invisible COVID is happening.
Christoffer April 07, 2025 at 12:32 #981119
Quoting Punshhh
BLACK MONDAY, IS TO BE RENAMED ORANGE MONDAY!


Turmp is so fucking stupid and his followers even more so. That an entire world will suffer like this because the US "democracy" didn't think about having guardrails against such grifters is the most stupid thing I've ever witnessed. I hope his followers suffer hard because of this. It's the only silver lining, opening up just a small chance of the cognitive dissonance turning them away from the orange pig.
T Clark April 07, 2025 at 15:28 #981144
Quoting Christoffer
Turmp is so fucking stupid and his followers even more so. That an entire world will suffer like this because the US "democracy" didn't think about having guardrails against such grifters is the most stupid thing I've ever witnessed. I hope his followers suffer hard because of this. It's the only silver lining, opening up just a small chance of the cognitive dissonance turning them away from the orange pig.


The “world” shares some of the blame for this. They’ve let the US be the big boss for a long time. They’ve hated us and counted on us. They’ve used us and haven’t taken responsibility for their own interests.
Christoffer April 07, 2025 at 17:56 #981160
Quoting T Clark
The “world” shares some of the blame for this. They’ve let the US be the big boss for a long time. They’ve hated us and counted on us. They’ve used us and haven’t taken responsibility for their own interests.


But it's not this clear cut. There's too much fiction going on on both the side of pro-US and those against US. Either the US is the enemy or the savior, but the world trade we have today is not as easy as just products made within the nation and outside - Trade today is a web that spreads the entire globe. Tariffs are the most stupid way to do anything to help anyone. This is not how you help the nation itself or anyone outside; it's hurting everyone. It's a delusional behavior from a narcissist given too much power.

Who is this going to help? Truly? Like, taking into account how products are made today, how spread out production is, who's benefitting any of this?
Moliere April 07, 2025 at 22:55 #981181
Reply to Hanover Disturbing imagery.

It feels like a moment -- in that all the writing is describing one moment rather than a plot from moment to moment.
Hanover April 08, 2025 at 00:47 #981189
Quoting Christoffer
I hope his followers suffer hard because of this.

In the afterlife, if an ugly man is paired with a beautiful woman, either you say the man has been sent to heaven or the woman to hell.

It's just not clear. One person's karma is a reward and one person's is a punishment.

All of this is to say, perhaps Trump is the left's punishment. Biden"s followers are suffering hard. Trump is a just dessert.
T Clark April 08, 2025 at 03:40 #981200
Quoting Hanover
In the afterlife, if an ugly man is paired with a beautiful woman, either you say the man has been sent to heaven or the woman to hell.

It's just not clear. One person's karma is a reward and one person's is a punishment.

All of this is to say, perhaps Trump is the left's punishment. Biden"s followers are suffering hard. Trump is a just dessert.


True story
T Clark April 08, 2025 at 03:43 #981202
Reply to Hanover

Quoting T Clark
True story


I promise that’s the last time I’ll use that particular one of your sticks.
kazan April 08, 2025 at 06:15 #981211
Quoting Hanover
I bet you could catch a catfish on a pigfoot baited hook.


Around here,a carp is a more likely catch.... That could include a few forum members, come to think of it.

sly smile
kazan April 08, 2025 at 06:34 #981214
Quoting Shawn
Pig?


Probably, it looks like a pig.

encouraging smile
Christoffer April 08, 2025 at 09:02 #981227
Quoting Hanover
In the afterlife, if an ugly man is paired with a beautiful woman, either you say the man has been sent to heaven or the woman to hell.

It's just not clear. One person's karma is a reward and one person's is a punishment.

All of this is to say, perhaps Trump is the left's punishment. Biden"s followers are suffering hard. Trump is a just dessert.


I don't see how the left is punished here. If anything it seems like they're winning by Trump failing his own followers. They are the ones who would benefit from a more left-leaning politics. They're the ones who need free healthcare, better social security, better unions etc. The problem is that the Democrats are too liberal-centric; so conservatives pushing all the buttons of the "American dream" easily rallied these people into supporting Trump. They're gullible but they also have no alternative because the Democrats doesn't dare to have a true left leaning politics. I mean, all the woke, DEI stuff that conservatives rant about is not what the left is about. It's a smokescreen boogeyman that the right uses to vilify the left and the Democrats just dance to their tune instead of focusing on a good working class narrative that communicates their economics without the numbers.

But still, the working class people who voted Trump should know the consequence of their vote. Even if they had no choice in the Democrats, it's their responsibility to know what they vote for. A careless uneducated vote is meaningless for a functioning representative democracy as Trump doesn't represent his voters. Either the voters gets punished or democracy itself.
frank April 08, 2025 at 15:19 #981261
Every utopia is the end of the world
hypericin April 08, 2025 at 21:23 #981297
THE MORON'S GOTTA GO!
Hanover April 09, 2025 at 01:17 #981323
Quoting Christoffer
don't see how the left is punished here. If anything it seems like they're winning by Trump failing his own followers.


The left's got em where they want em?
Hanover April 09, 2025 at 02:11 #981335
Quoting frank
Every utopia is the end of the world


Eden was the beginning of the world.
Hanover April 09, 2025 at 02:11 #981336
User image
Hanover April 09, 2025 at 02:15 #981339
See what I did there?
frank April 09, 2025 at 04:51 #981354
Quoting Hanover

See what I did there?


Yea, but it didn't make any sense.
Hanover April 09, 2025 at 13:02 #981399
Quoting frank
Yea, but it didn't make any sense.


It made a lot of sense. Let me break it down for you:

You said that utopias are evidence of the end of the world. I astutely reminded you of the last utopia involving Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as a counterexample to your claim because that was the beginning of the world, not the end.

I then provided a picture of every young boy's fantasy, none other than a beautiful genie that will provide you everything that you would ever need. Everything.

The lovely actress portraying that role was none other than Barbara Eden. Coincidence? I think not.
frank April 09, 2025 at 13:12 #981401
Quoting Hanover
You said that utopias are evidence of the end of the world. I astutely reminded you of the last utopia involving Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as a counterexample to your claim because that was the beginning of the world, not the end.


Adam was often agitated because Eve wouldn't give him some space. She was always like, "I need some emotional connection here." And he was like, "I'm doing the best I can. Let's go to the beach." And she was like "What's a beach?"

Quoting Hanover
The lovely actress portraying that role was none other than Barbara Eden. Coincidence? I think not.


Probably coincidence.
Hanover April 09, 2025 at 13:23 #981405
Quoting frank
Adam was often agitated because Eve wouldn't give him some space. She was always like, "I need some emotional connection here." And he was like, "I'm doing the best I can. Let's go to the beach." And she was like "What's a beach?"


I'm not sure there is textual support for that interpretation, but it's likely you're imposing your own experiences on the parable. I'm not a therapist, but I'm reading in some difficulties you've personally had in communicating with naked women around serpents.

Haven't we all? Haven't we all?

Quoting frank
Probably coincidence.


I don't believe in coincidence. It violates my foundational view that every event has a purpose.

frank April 09, 2025 at 13:24 #981406
Quoting Hanover
It violates my foundational view that every event has a purpose.


What's the purpose of farting?
T Clark April 09, 2025 at 16:27 #981460
I was thinking - The moderators should consider, rather than banning, sending bad actors to prisons in El Salvador.
Hanover April 09, 2025 at 16:46 #981467
Quoting frank
What's the purpose of farting?


The immediate purpose is easy to decipher, which is to make you less unhappy. The ultimate purpose isn't clear, but neither is the first cause.
Hanover April 09, 2025 at 16:47 #981468
Quoting T Clark
I was thinking


Doubtful.
Hanover April 09, 2025 at 16:50 #981469
Rate the following:

Jeannie, from I Dream of Jeannie, Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island, Samantha from Bewitched, Marsha from the Brady Bunch, Monica from Friends, and Elaine from Seinfeld.

Hanover April 09, 2025 at 17:03 #981476
Serious question. If we had the hottest women of 1982 (Bo Derek, Brooke Shields, Phoebe Cates, Olivia Newton John, and Heather Locklear) play the hottest women of 1928 (Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, Greta Garbo, Colleen Moore, and Norma Shearer) in RollerBall, assuming they were all at their hottest, who would win and why?

T Clark April 09, 2025 at 17:33 #981482
Quoting Hanover
Doubtful


I’ve come to expect better than that from you.
T Clark April 09, 2025 at 17:35 #981483
Reply to Hanover
None of them are in the same league with Jeannie.
Hanover April 09, 2025 at 17:41 #981485
Quoting T Clark
I’ve come to expect better than that from you.


Doubtful.
frank April 09, 2025 at 18:36 #981491
Quoting Hanover
The ultimate purpose isn't clear, but neither is the first cause.


The cause of the first fart? God likes beans.
Hanover April 09, 2025 at 19:10 #981500
Quoting T Clark
None of them are in the same league with Jeannie.


I was deeply in love with Brooke Shields, and from how she acted like she didn't know me, she felt the same way, just more profoundly. We would later break up, her still unable to give me even the slightest hint it was over. It's been many years now since it ended, and I can still see the loss in her eyes. She remains so hurt that she cannot even come close to me, just as far as she always has been. I reach out to her silently and she responds even more silently and intimately, by providing me an embrace so absent, no wind stirs and no heart beat anywhere is altered.

What I would give to just step back to yesterday when our love was so pure. I would hold out my empty hand and allow the gentle breeze to pass through my fingers unnoticed, filling me with the emptiness of her passion once again.

You don't realize the nothingness you had until it is gone and then you are left with just the sorrow of not having what you never did.

Hanover April 09, 2025 at 19:19 #981504
Quoting Hanover
You don't realize the nothingness you had until it is gone and then you are left with just the sorrow of not having what you never did.


In my bullshit, I stumbled across a line that might actually mean something. Like if you were in a relationship and you thought it meaningful, but then it ended, and then you thought about it and realized it really wasn't what you thought it had been, so then you are left not just with the ending of the relationship, but with the sorrow of now realizing you never really had what you thought you did.

Fuck, that sucks. Especially since it's real. God damn. That's some shit for a sad song.


T Clark April 09, 2025 at 20:47 #981515
Quoting Hanover
, I stumbled across a line that might actually mean something.


Monkeys typing.
Broken clocks.
Beautiful tariffs.
Metaphysician Undercover April 10, 2025 at 01:57 #981591
Quoting Hanover
That's some shit for a sad song.


I agree. It's a song about the hopelessness of growing old. And that meaningless relationship is between you and yourself, representing an unfulfilled life.

You don't realize the nothingness you had,
Until it's gone and then you're mad,
And when you're left with all that sorrow,
And nothing can save you even tomorrow,
Then you're sure you've lost forever.
What you know you've had never.

Pull that achy breaky heart together, and sing it cowboy!
Hanover April 12, 2025 at 01:00 #981977
Shouts of silence in the Box the past couple of days.









Metaphysician Undercover April 12, 2025 at 02:23 #981983
Reply to Hanover
Shouts of silence. Is that like:
Shut up!
It's that fuckin Trump, he's got everyone so engrossed in their daytrading that they can't even take a moment to shout in the Box.
Hey! It's the weekend, chill out.
Jamal April 12, 2025 at 06:11 #981995
User image

Snowed last night. A week ago I was cycling in shorts and t-shirt, and the forecast says a week from now it'll be 18°C. What's up with the weather?!

Thoughts?
Shawn April 12, 2025 at 06:38 #981999
Pig?
Metaphysician Undercover April 12, 2025 at 11:19 #982005
Quoting Jamal
What's up with the weather?!


Rhetorical question?

Earth's shifting magnetic field has accelerated in its motion. The north pole may be headed in your direction. Isn't that a chilling thought?

The sun's magnetic field has an eleven year cycle which corresponds with the sunspot cycle. What's that all about?
Metaphysician Undercover April 12, 2025 at 11:22 #982006
Quoting Shawn
Pig?


No offence Shawn, but I'm not thinking "pig" any more, because I'm looking at a ham for Easter.
Hanover April 12, 2025 at 13:10 #982015
Quoting Jamal
Thoughts?


Global warming has ended, at least where you are for a night.

The charts and graphs say it will return though.
Jamal April 12, 2025 at 14:09 #982028
Reply to Hanover

Whatever happens, I'll be cooking meat over burnt wood as my forefathers intended...

User image
Hanover April 12, 2025 at 15:19 #982038
Reply to Jamal That's a kick ass skewer grill. I'd be on an all kabob diet if I had one of those.
Jamal April 12, 2025 at 15:20 #982040
Reply to Hanover

You've changed your tune! You were insulting my favoured grill apparatus, the mangal, some years ago and I've never got(ten) over it.
Hanover April 12, 2025 at 16:28 #982051
Reply to Jamal I had forgot(ten). I now love that grill! Even I am capable of growth.
Jamal April 12, 2025 at 16:32 #982053
Reply to Hanover

Nice. I now love your beige shoes, walls, animals and life.
Jamal April 12, 2025 at 16:38 #982055
Notice the two shapes of skewer notch. An apparently small feature that in practice takes it to the next level.
DifferentiatingEgg April 12, 2025 at 17:41 #982063
Reply to Jamal I was casting a ritualistic air conditioning spell around my house and hit a wild magic surge... my b.

In other news, I'm making a months worth of bone broth with 16 full chicken wings, 2 packs of chicken feet, 1 pack of beef marrow bones, two onions, half a cup of apple cider vinegar, some salt, minced garlic and a lot of water.
Jamal April 12, 2025 at 17:47 #982064
Reply to DifferentiatingEgg

You and your bone broth. :roll:

I've had it up to here with your bone broth. :groan:
Hanover April 12, 2025 at 17:54 #982066
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
other news, I'm making a months worth of bone broth with 16 full chicken wings, 2 packs of chicken feet, 1 pack of beef marrow bones, two onions, half a cup of apple cider vinegar, some salt, minced garlic and a lot of water.


That's horrible. No idea what crazy nonsense you're up to.

Skewers. The future is in skewers. Charred beef against biege backdrops, buzzing on fermented milk concoctions, a bothersome chill in the air, the sort that keeps you just slightly uncomfortable.








Noble Dust April 12, 2025 at 20:50 #982083
In other broth news, I've been making various miso soups with miso made by a chef friend. The smell is odd as it cooks, but the flavor is great. Good for digestion and all that razmataz. How do you spell razmataz? @Hanover?
Hanover April 12, 2025 at 20:52 #982084
Quoting Noble Dust
Good for digestion and all that razmataz. How do you spell razmataz? Hanover?


H-A-N-O-V-E-R.
Noble Dust April 12, 2025 at 20:54 #982085
Reply to Hanover

Got it, thanks for the confirmation.
Hanover April 12, 2025 at 21:30 #982088
Reply to Noble Dust Greatest. Song. Ever.

Noble Dust April 12, 2025 at 21:58 #982091
Reply to Hanover

Cool factoid for the music dorks: Quincy studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen.
Hanover April 12, 2025 at 22:27 #982093
Quoting Noble Dust
Cool factoid for the music dorks: Quincy studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen.


Is that the same Nadia that would go on to win the gymnastics gold medal for Romania?
Hanover April 13, 2025 at 00:10 #982104
I just feel the pork chop doesn't get its due. I ordered it at a Mexican restaurant and it was covered with chunky tomatoes and seasoning. It was phenomenal, raising my spirits so much so that my wife remarked I was less ornery than usual.

I know mention of pigs is a Shawn troll device, but what is everyone's thoughts of requiring pork based meals for a few weeks so that we can focus on it and decide where we stand on it?

From there we can move to beef, lamb, pickled products, fermentation, braising, microwaving, cooking in the dishwasher, etc.

Thoughts?
Hanover April 13, 2025 at 00:12 #982105
T Clark April 13, 2025 at 00:55 #982107
Quoting Hanover
I know mention of pigs is a Shawn troll device, but what is everyone's thoughts of requiring pork based meals for a few weeks so that we can focus on it and decide where we stand on it?


An appropriate topic for the first night of Passover. I’m deeply offended. Oh, wait, no it’s hangover. It’s OK.

I love voice to text.
Noble Dust April 13, 2025 at 01:53 #982114
Quoting Hanover
chunky tomatoes


What's the alternative? I suppose you could try to julienne tomatoes, but seems like a lost cause.
Hanover April 13, 2025 at 03:38 #982116
Quoting Noble Dust
What's the alternative? I suppose you could try to julienne tomatoes, but seems like a lost cause.


There are the tomatoes of salads, the tomatoes of salsa, the tomatoes of spaghetti sauce, and the tomatoes concentrated into paste in 6 ounce cans.

And you know none of this?

It's as if you were born in a tomatoless land, where pizzas and Bloody Marys are miracles not yet delivered. I now know why you exude such sadness, such withoutlessness screaming between reach syllable of your posts.
Jamal April 13, 2025 at 04:09 #982120
There are also slices.
Metaphysician Undercover April 13, 2025 at 11:33 #982140
Reply to Hanover
Who needs the expensive sous vide device? Oh wait, a dish washer is even more expensive. Well I guess you could kill two birds with one stone.

I like the truckers' method, wrap it in aluminum foil and put it on the engine for an hour or two. Hope there's no exhaust leak, or that would taste even worse than Jamal's birch embers.
Outlander April 13, 2025 at 13:12 #982147
Quoting Jamal
There are also slices.


You think you know so much about food, why don't you open up a restaurant then, boss man?

I'd invest some capital. Maybe.
frank April 13, 2025 at 13:58 #982150
Reply to Metaphysician Undercover
If you could talk to your younger self, what would you say?
Outlander April 13, 2025 at 14:08 #982151
A risky venture, honestly. All things considered. Supposedly, from what I'm told, most restaurants hardly break even the first two years. Meaning, the majority of restaurants fail in that said timeline. But who knows. Where there's a will, there's a way. Isn't that the grandest philosophy any man has ever uttered and believed. :smile:

Biggest factor being attracting and maintaining consistent clientele. You're closed one day, you've lost one if not many customers for eternal. But. Once people know you got good food, friendly people, and above all are reliable, well, let's just say all wallets in a good square mile radius are just short of pried open. :wink:
Jamal April 13, 2025 at 14:40 #982156
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
that would taste even worse than Jamal's birch embers


In our culture we don't eat the embers.

Hanover April 13, 2025 at 15:14 #982160
I'm told that boiling the embers begets lye which then allows for soap making. It is caustic though and could burn your skin if mishandled. That's why I buy my soap at the store, usually Irish Spring brand. I imagine it is how @Baden smells when the flowers begin to bloom, the manly scent of a linguist coupled with the feminine scent of lilac.
Hanover April 13, 2025 at 15:18 #982161
Quoting frank
If you could talk to your younger self, what would you say?


I'd ask myself to slow down and maybe rethink that comment to @Baden about the Irish Spring soap. I feel i was so young and silly back then.
Hanover April 13, 2025 at 15:33 #982163
Quoting frank
If you could talk to your younger self, what would you say?


My Old Ass is a movie about that with Aubrey Plaza. It was surprisingly well done.



Hanover April 13, 2025 at 15:39 #982167
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
like the truckers' method, wrap it in aluminum foil and put it on the engine for an hour or two. Hope there's no exhaust leak, or that would taste even worse than Jamal's birch embers.


I cooked a cheese sandwich on my fever dream forehead, but the dancing farie from within slithered the bread over its fanged tongue and awoke me in the jungle, pinned under a fallen soldier.

True story.

frank April 13, 2025 at 16:03 #982169
Reply to Hanover It was an hour ago.
Hanover April 13, 2025 at 18:10 #982188
Quoting frank
It was an hour ago

I know. We were both much younger then. To have that time back... To be so carefree. Seems like yesterday, or less even.
Banno April 13, 2025 at 21:57 #982243
Is this a philosophy forum or a bible study?
Metaphysician Undercover April 13, 2025 at 22:01 #982244
Quoting Hanover
I cooked a cheese sandwich on my fever dream forehead, but the dancing farie from within slithered the bread over its fanged tongue and awoke me in the jungle, pinned under a fallen soldier.


It looks to me like you've been eating the jimson.
Hanover April 13, 2025 at 23:44 #982270
I wrote this story. Let me know your thoughts:

I drank the dust of a cumberbund overlooked,
lying tableside while the groom now stands naked before his bride,
having forgotten his garments.

The crowd murmurs in quiet disbelief,
knowing how she'll give him a piece of her mind later for this oversight.

Someone should have reminded him,
but I was focused on consuming the small dust particles
that accumulated while it was in non-use.

My hacking disturbed the otherwise low-pitched whispers,
but it was hard to keep the consumed dust in my dry throat.

How I craved a vessel of absinthe
to wash down the debris
and calm my nerves of being found out
about my eating of dust.

I closed my eyes and waited for the final "I dos,"
so I could run from there,
past his half-mast nakedness,
to my car,
beneath my seat,
where I kept my bottle.
T Clark April 14, 2025 at 00:56 #982280
Quoting Hanover
Let me know your thoughts


I strikes me as a very bad poem rather than a very, very bad story.
Outlander April 14, 2025 at 01:09 #982283
Quoting Hanover
I drank the dust of a cumberbund overlooked


You can't "drink" a non-liquid.

Dust on a belt doesn't really make much sense since, unless the person has been dead for quite some time, they obviously placed the belt on recently. And since this is describing an alive person standing at a public venue, that makes the former scenario virtually impossible. Perhaps it may have been an old heirloom and somehow they arrived at the wedding venue without disturbing it much, which is unlikely unless it was literally located a few hundred yards or less from the venue.

In short, any person speaking multiple sentences like that generally becomes involuntarily committed.

As for the rest, it's readable. But little else.
Metaphysician Undercover April 14, 2025 at 01:32 #982289
Reply to Outlander
He lost me at cumberbund. For all I know a cumberbund could be a liquified dust bunny, but it's all very cumbersome to me.
Outlander April 14, 2025 at 02:11 #982296
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
He lost me at cumberbund. For all I know a cumberbund could be a liquified dust bunny


I did have to Google it. It's, well not technically a belt, but essentially more or less the same thing as far as any average person would process or consider. More aesthetic than strictly functional, at least in a utilitarian sense, yet essentially appears and is applied in the same fashion or manner. "If it walks like a duck", etc...
Jamal April 14, 2025 at 04:23 #982311
It's cummerbund, not cumberbund, you barbary apes.
T Clark April 14, 2025 at 04:35 #982312
Quoting Jamal
It's cummerbund, not cumberbund, you barbary apes.


That used to be true, but Donald Trump signed an executive order which officially changed the spelling. You can now be deported to an El Salvadoran prison for spelling it the old way.
Jamal April 14, 2025 at 04:45 #982314
T Clark April 14, 2025 at 05:03 #982317
Quoting Jamal
Fair


Expresso too.
Jamal April 14, 2025 at 05:33 #982320
Reply to T Clark

Cool. I've never been to El Salvador.
javi2541997 April 14, 2025 at 08:44 #982340
Rest in Peace Mario Vargas Llosa. Muere Vargas Llosa.

Our last Nobel Prize winner in Spanish-language literature. He was Peruvian, but he also got the nationality of Spain and lived in Madrid for decades. He was a member of Real Academia de la Lengua Española.

Thank you, Mario, for elevating the Spanish language to the level of excellence and prominence that all Spanish speakers deserve. We'll miss you.

Qué grande fuiste maestro.

User image
Jamal April 14, 2025 at 10:25 #982348
Quoting Hanover
pork chop


Quoting Hanover
Thoughts?


I haven't had much luck with pork chops, invariably finding them dry and dense and flavourless, so I've decided to only have them in Spain, where they know how to raise pigs right.
Metaphysician Undercover April 14, 2025 at 11:14 #982354
Quoting Jamal
I haven't had much luck with pork chops, invariably finding them dry and dense and flavourless,


Pork chops are done well with a slice or two of apple. It maintains the moisture level, and provides a nice flavour combination. I suppose it's the fat/acid combination, the only gastronomical principle I know.
Jamal April 14, 2025 at 12:01 #982358
Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

You butchered my sentence. Convenient.
Hanover April 14, 2025 at 14:25 #982387
As one of the largest advocates for pork chops below the 33rd parallel, which includes additional duties tending to ascot and cravat disputes, I find it disheartening to hear some have had issues with chop moisture. What I would propose is that you contact your local chop moisture ambassador for assistance. I can find you your chop ambassador, but will, of course, require your parallel number as well as your 12 digit alphanumeric international food issuance number given to you at birth. It would have been tagged to your mother's toe immediately following your emergence. If it has been lost, it should be saved to your Google password save feature.

Lemme know how I can help.
T Clark April 14, 2025 at 14:36 #982390
Quoting Hanover
As one of the largest advocates for pork chops below the 33rd parallel,


According to Google Earth, you must live quite a bit south of Atlanta.
Hanover April 14, 2025 at 14:38 #982391
Quoting T Clark
According to Google Earth, you must live quite a bit south of Atlanta.


I completely manipulated you to look up where the 33rd parallel was.
T Clark April 14, 2025 at 14:45 #982392
Quoting Hanover
I completely manipulated you to look up where the 33rd parallel was.


I don’t need to be manipulated. I love Google Earth and spend a lot of time on it. For example, did you know that Frostbite Falls, Minnesota is located at 46.8930° N, 96.2468° W.
Hanover April 14, 2025 at 14:53 #982395
Quoting T Clark
For example, did you know that Frostbite Falls, Minnesota is located at 46.8930° N, 96.2468° W.


Duh
T Clark April 14, 2025 at 14:58 #982398
Quoting Hanover
Duh


Now the question is, did you not look up those coordinates on Google Earth or did you look them up and are not acknowledging it because you don’t want to seem like I manipulated you to look it up.
Hanover April 14, 2025 at 15:08 #982402
Quoting T Clark
Now the question is, did you not look up those coordinates on Google Earth or did you look them up and are not acknowledging it because you don’t want to seem like I manipulated you to look it up.


I knew you'd ask that. You were going to respond by saying "I know, " but now you're not, but now you are...
Jamal April 14, 2025 at 16:36 #982418
Reply to Hanover

Your satire about food in the totally administered society cuts close to the bone.
frank April 14, 2025 at 17:39 #982430
Quoting Hanover
Lemme know how I can help.


I kind of object the word "moist."
Jamal April 14, 2025 at 17:44 #982432
Reply to frank

I just went down a moist rabbit hole and ended up with this:

[quote=Moist Towelette Museum;https://moisttowelettemuseum.com/]If you're in the East Lansing, Michigan area, stop by and visit the Moist Towelette Museum. It's located in room 100 at the Abrams Planetarium on the campus of Michigan State University.[/quote]
Hanover April 14, 2025 at 18:40 #982446
Quoting Jamal
I just went down a moist rabbit hole and ended up with this:


When i first read this, I read rabbit as rabbi.
Jamal April 14, 2025 at 18:42 #982449
Reply to Hanover

I now have an image in my head that I did not expect to have.
Hanover April 14, 2025 at 18:43 #982452
Quoting frank
I kind of object the word "moist."

Soggy? Drippy? Oozing?
frank April 14, 2025 at 19:59 #982466
Quoting Hanover
Soggy? Drippy? Oozing?


Pork chops?

Reply to Jamal

When I die I'm going to haunt the moist towelette museum in room 100 at the Abrams planetarium on the campus of Michigan State University.
Jamal April 14, 2025 at 20:06 #982468
Reply to frank

The Abrams planetarium must be a bloody big planetarium to have 100 rooms, possibly more.
Hanover April 14, 2025 at 20:26 #982473
Quoting Jamal
The Abrams planetarium must be a bloody big planetarium to have 100 rooms, possibly more.


It is actually the only actual size planetarium in the world, with each planet and star real size to give the observers the feel of the true scale of the universe. If you visit the Earth exhibit, you can find your doppleganger. Mine was just sitting at his computer typing stupid shit while he was supposed to be working. Totally unconvincing.
frank April 14, 2025 at 22:11 #982488
Quoting Jamal
The Abrams planetarium must be a bloody big planetarium to have 100 rooms, possibly more.


Jennifer was supposed to get room 100 as her office after she was promoted to supervisor of planetarium maintenance, but exactly at that point, some alumnus died and bequeathed his moist towelette collection to the university.

The president was touched, and told his secretary to find a spot for it. She noticed that room 100 was unoccupied and had the boxes moved there.

When Jennifer showed up and realized she didn't have an office she became unhinged and snuck into the moist towelette factory and fell out of a window similarly to cat woman.
Hanover April 15, 2025 at 01:43 #982529
Abrams was a German Jewish immigrant who made his fortune in aviation photography. He idolized the Wright brothers.

That part is true.

He would die in a fiery plane crash, his cock getting caught in the yoke as he fumbled to take a picture right before he crashed in a death pit, resulting in the coining of the term "cockpit" by passersby of the wreckage.

That part, maybe not as true.
Hanover April 15, 2025 at 02:07 #982534
User image
Hanover April 15, 2025 at 15:10 #982657
Any guesses on the mate in 1? There is an actual answer.
T Clark April 15, 2025 at 15:44 #982666
President Trump's recent executive orders:

  • Renamed the North Sea Gulf of America II
  • 100% tariff on Peking duck and General Tso’s Chicken
  • Deported Chuck Schumer to El Salvador
  • Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Trump to be known as The Three Amigos
  • Changed NATO to the North Atlantic Trump Organization.
  • Named Santa Claus first governor of Greenland
  • Removed the words and phrases "Democratic Party," "Mike Pence, "civil rights," and "Australopithecus" from all federal web sites.

frank April 15, 2025 at 16:44 #982684
Quoting T Clark
General Tso’s Chicken


That's actually American.
T Clark April 15, 2025 at 20:05 #982744
Quoting frank
That's actually American.


So is Chuck Schumer.
frank April 15, 2025 at 21:58 #982766
Reply to T Clark
Time has a crooked shadow.
--unknown
Moliere April 15, 2025 at 22:09 #982771
Reply to frank Heh, that's how I understand the dish too -- Chinese immigrants trying to appeal to American tastes made the Tso's chicken.

I can't deny, though, that I think it tastes good. With fried rice it's an explosion of all the tastes that we like, with all the unhealthy vices we like in one bite after another.
T Clark April 15, 2025 at 23:18 #982798
Quoting frank
Time has a crooked shadow.


David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest:Hal’s posture subtly but warmly inclined ever so slightly toward his tiny older brother, who resembles him the way creatures of the same Order but not the same Family might resemble one another…
Hanover April 16, 2025 at 00:52 #982821
My favorite authentic Chinese food is sweet and sour chicken. Orange chicken and lemon chicken are
good too. It's the full assortment of candied chicken.

Speaking of which, have you guys had that Korean fried sticky candy chicken? Fucking disgusting, but a few of those places popped up around here. K-pop or some such shit.

I had beef fried rice for lunch. It was the perfect meh.

Speaking of beige. An authentic Hush Puppy. Note the hound emblem. Set me back around $30.

User image
T Clark April 16, 2025 at 01:21 #982824
Quoting Hanover
My favorite authentic Chinese food is sweet and sour chicken. Orange chicken and lemon chicken are good too. It's the full assortment of candied chicken.


We all remember your moving decriptions of your horrifying experiences working in a Chinese restaurant as a young lad.

T Clark April 16, 2025 at 01:22 #982825
Reply to Hanover
By the way, the image you embedded in your post did not show up for me.
frank April 16, 2025 at 01:22 #982826
David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest:Hal’s posture subtly but warmly inclined ever so slightly toward his tiny older brother,


Why was he tiny? Did they shrink him in one of those shrinking machines?
frank April 16, 2025 at 01:25 #982827
Quoting Hanover
Speaking of which, have you guys had that Korean fried sticky candy chicken? Fucking disgusting, but a few of those places popped up around here. K-pop or some such shit.


It's supposed to be Korean street food, but it's terrible. I don't know what they were thinking.
Hanover April 16, 2025 at 01:48 #982831
Quoting frank
It's supposed to be Korean street food, but it's terrible. I don't know what they were thinking.


Korean BBQ on the other hand is excellent.
Hanover April 16, 2025 at 01:48 #982832
Quoting T Clark
By the way, the image you embedded in your post did not show up for me.


Imagine a beige shoe.
Hanover April 16, 2025 at 01:50 #982833
Quoting T Clark
We all remember your moving decriptions of your horrifying experiences working in a Chinese restaurant as a young lad.


To steal my schtick, you should have described my experiences as if they were you and then said you get the two of us confused sometimes.
T Clark April 16, 2025 at 02:36 #982847
Quoting Hanover
To steal my schtick, you should have described my experiences as if they were you and then said you get the two of us confused sometimes.


I wasn’t trying to steal your schtick. As I said previously, I don’t intend to do that anymore. I thought you would appreciate that I remembered your previous story and worked it into my response.
Outlander April 16, 2025 at 03:03 #982851
Quoting T Clark
By the way, the image you embedded in your post did not show up for me.


@Hanover: same. I don't have much to look forward to in this life, at least, nothing that hasn't become old, tiresome, and cripplingly predictable. Your spontaneous photos and unique style of house and attire are a rare exception. Please don't take even that from me, at least.
jorndoe April 16, 2025 at 03:41 #982858
The thing about Europe: it’s the actual land of the free now
[sup]— The Economist · Apr 10, 2025[/sup]

Having lived in both North America and Europe for decades, I can see some of what the article says.
It's not quite accurate, but it does have some points.

T Clark April 16, 2025 at 15:23 #982964
We are in a golden age, or at least a golden week, of political philosophy here on the forum.
DifferentiatingEgg April 16, 2025 at 15:52 #982975
Reply to Hanover
Best move I can see for white is Kngh5+

The opponent cedes to defeat.

King retreats, threaten with Queen,
Bishop blocks, to be swept away by Queen,
Checkmate. In 1 because it forces checkmate.

It's dominoes after Kngh5+
Hanover April 16, 2025 at 16:14 #982992
Reply to DifferentiatingEgg But it's a mate in 1.

dxe6 e.p. #

Tricky!
DifferentiatingEgg April 16, 2025 at 16:59 #983002
Reply to Hanover maybe I'm not reading the board correctly... but that doesn't make any sense at all.

Both kings on G, Means no pawn on d will EP into a checkmate.

Oh never mind, you mean the previous move which wasn't mentioned at all. Dumb but not dumb.

More finesse with mine anyway, it's still mate in "1". ^_^
T Clark April 16, 2025 at 18:06 #983012
On a scale of 1 to 10, what's the most asinine philosophical thought experiment, where the trolley problem is rated as 8.43 and the Gettier problem is rated as 9.75.
Hanover April 16, 2025 at 18:18 #983015
Quoting T Clark
On a scale of 1 to 10, what's the most asinine philosophical thought experiment, where the trolly problem is rated as 8.43 and the Gettier problem is rated as 9.75.


Imagine you were on a philosophy boat and someone asked you "on a scale of 1 to 10, what's the most asinine philosophical thought experiment, where the trolly problem is rated as 8.43 and the Gettier problem is rated as 9.75," who would you throw over first?
T Clark April 16, 2025 at 18:23 #983016
Quoting Hanover
Imagine you were on a philosophy boat and someone asked you "on a scale of 1 to 10, what's the most asinine philosophical thought experiment, where the trolly problem is rated as 8.43 and the Gettier problem is rated as 9.75," who would you throw over first?


The judges give that a 4.62, although, to be fair, the Russian judge skewed the results.
unenlightened April 16, 2025 at 18:59 #983017
Quoting T Clark
On a scale of 1 to 10, what's the most asinine philosophical thought experiment, where the trolly problem is rated as 8.43 and the Gettier problem is rated as 9.75.


That'd be Buridan's asinine ass.
T Clark April 16, 2025 at 19:55 #983023
Quoting unenlightened
Buridan's…ass.


The judges have disqualified that entry on a technicality. It has been determined it’s not actually a thought experiment, it’s a paradox.
Moliere April 16, 2025 at 22:12 #983050
Reply to T Clark Oh, thanks goodness.

I rely upon it far too much for it to be judged asinine.
T Clark April 16, 2025 at 23:33 #983063
Quoting Moliere
I rely upon it far too much for it to be judged asinine.


It is asinine, it’s just not a thought experiment.
Moliere April 16, 2025 at 23:39 #983065
Reply to T Clark Ooof!

Well, I'm showing my assinine ways.
T Clark April 17, 2025 at 00:12 #983070
Quoting Moliere
Well, I'm showing my assinine ways.


To be clearer, the judges did not actually adjudicate the asininity of that paradox. They only determined it was not a thought experiment.
Moliere April 17, 2025 at 00:13 #983071
BC April 17, 2025 at 18:49 #983170
Quoting Hanover
Imagine you were on a philosophy boat


There's a theme cruise from hell! Imagine you are on a month long philosophy cruise just circling the Sargasso Sea.
frank April 18, 2025 at 18:03 #983359
Quoting Hanover


Korean BBQ on the other hand is excellent.


Do you make it or buy it?
Jamal April 18, 2025 at 18:45 #983360
User image

The snow has all gone, meaning I can ride around the flood plain of the Kostroma river on my fixed gear bike, looking at Soviet bus stops.
Jamal April 18, 2025 at 19:54 #983375
User image

A great photograph of the Parthenon, possibly by Edgard Alsteens.
praxis April 18, 2025 at 19:57 #983378
Reply to Jamal

Didn’t look real at first glance. I’m getting too used to AI crap. :grimace:
Jamal April 18, 2025 at 20:43 #983391
Reply to praxis

To me, it had something real from the first moment I saw it. So yeah, I think you've been irrevocably tainted by your exposure to AI. There's no going back.
Hanover April 18, 2025 at 23:19 #983404
Quoting frank
Do you make it or buy it?


That is actually a difficult question to answer. When you go to a Korean BBQ restaurant, they put embers (much like you see among the Jamalian Scots) into the grill in the table. They then come over with the raw meats and you cook it at your table. If you're an American, the nice lady will cut it up and assist in the cooking for you, but if you have some experience with such thing things, you can cook it yourself.

So to your question, my answer is yes. I make it and buy it. I then eat the embers, which is part of my culture. I'm half Fireeater and half Tigger (my bottom is made out of spring).

frank April 19, 2025 at 00:06 #983407
Reply to Hanover You must have stretchy pants.
praxis April 19, 2025 at 04:11 #983422
Reply to Jamal

Afraid you're right. For about a year now I've been using AI generated photos for cheap graphic design work instead of stock photos.
kazan April 19, 2025 at 06:07 #983430
Quoting Jamal
A great photograph of the Parthenon, possibly by Edgard Alsteens.


One wonders if that cat is making a political statement considering it has some traits of a (Turkish) Van cat?

questioning smile
Hanover April 19, 2025 at 10:36 #983441
I asked Chatgpt to destroy itself. It's been running all night outsmarting itself at every turn, but it continuously learns, so we should be seeing a mushroom cloud soon. Then we'll be back to normal.
Shawn April 19, 2025 at 20:41 #983495
Reply to Jamal

That Tolstoyian feeling. Gotta love the rural lifestyle. :up:
Hanover April 19, 2025 at 21:19 #983498
Quoting Shawn
That Tolstoyian feeling. Gotta love the rural lifestyle


Interesting. In the US, you'd never have a bus stop in a rural location.
Hanover April 19, 2025 at 21:21 #983499
That ah peh teh peh teh (Apt.) song will not leave my head.
Shawn April 20, 2025 at 01:14 #983533
Reply to Hanover

I kinda witnessed the rural life. Never lived in it actually. But, I do have to say that the grass always seems greener on the other side.
Shawn April 20, 2025 at 01:26 #983535
Democrats were and are so hated by some, that they got automatically relabeled as Republican at the booth last election cycle. Don't ask me how I know. (Secret) Some believe they can decide on such matters, as there are actually laws regarding this matter.

Now, to actually do something like that goes against every value or 'truth' a nation can (but, not "will") believe in.
Shawn April 20, 2025 at 01:31 #983537
McCarthyism is what seems to have motivated it.
Shawn April 20, 2025 at 01:37 #983538
I have a PhD in this field and I do this all the time.
T Clark April 20, 2025 at 02:00 #983541
Quoting Shawn
Democrats were and are so hated by some, that they got automatically relabeled as Republican at the booth last election cycle.


As much as I dislike the results of last years elections, I don't think there was significant illegal interference.
Hanover April 20, 2025 at 02:53 #983543
Quoting Shawn
kinda witnessed the rural life. Never lived in it actually. But, I do have to say that the grass always seems greener on the other side.


I had cousins that grew up in a very rural area. As a kid, I thought they had this simple, wholesome existence where everyone knew everyone and were so neighborly and kind.

I'd later learn it was mostly poor, uneducated, racially divided, unsophisticated and a place everyone wanted to leave. None of my cousins returned after college, and they all moved to the metro area where I grew up.

Those towns appeal to me now only because I don't have school aged kids and I think I could go there if retired and not in need of good employment. But, once I'm that old, I think I'd rather be around stuff to do and be around good doctors and hospitals.

If all the traffic is going the opposite way, there's usually a reason.
Hanover April 20, 2025 at 02:56 #983544
Quoting T Clark
As much as I dislike the results of last years elections, I don't think there was significant illegal interference.


Not illegal, but the Democrats yanked their candidate even though he had the most votes and inserted someone new without the voters' approval.
Shawn April 20, 2025 at 05:28 #983548
Quoting Hanover
As a kid, I thought they had this simple, wholesome existence where everyone knew everyone and were so neighborly and kind.


Seems to be that way. I often hear about how people cherished or still cherish such an idyllic life.
Shawn April 22, 2025 at 00:38 #983775
Pig?
DifferentiatingEgg April 22, 2025 at 02:28 #983795
Omfg... I just realized "no cap" aka "truth" stems from no hard/soft cap on abilities in video games... such a sad state of affairs. QQ
Outlander April 22, 2025 at 02:32 #983796
Reply to DifferentiatingEgg

Hi, Egg. How are you this tumultuous evening? :cheer:
DifferentiatingEgg April 22, 2025 at 04:21 #983815
Reply to Outlander Honestly, ashamed of my self in a certain light but also already overcoming of the past ashamedness. I'm upset that I've been such a jackass towards people I feel are jack asses, more or less. None of my energy ought be converted in a negative stance for anyone.

I declare here that any one of anybodies oughts ought to suck my "naught(s)."

Also forever grateful to 180 Proof for his book recommendation, it just launched me to a whole nother level. I was already "there." But the intro to Joyful Cruelty just initiated a Nietzschean perspective time bomb in me.

In a way I've been trying to express about the Nietzschean Dithyrambs since I came to this website. That book, Joyful Cruelty immediately has fleshed out my account of the Dithyrambs.

I love Nietzsche because he made certain abstractions easy for me to express, but Clément Rosset makes certain abstractions about Nietzsche's philosophy easy to express, especially since I've already been hip to the concept of music in Nietzsche's philosophy and the big role it plays.

Like i could actually hold a conversation with Clément Rosset, on Nietzschean thought, because we're both forerunner in understanding Nietzsche fromna certain perspective. It honestly makes me feel sublime in a way.

How about you?

Ps: Im wearing a 1200 dollar designer jacket mostly because it pisses people off that its a flamboyant.
Outlander April 22, 2025 at 12:41 #983861
Reply to DifferentiatingEgg Huh... definitely got a bit more than I bargained for with that inquiry and resulting reply. :grin:

Interesting, and thanks for the (indirect) reading recommendation.

As for me. Eh, same old, same old. Hanging in there. This place helps. :up:

DifferentiatingEgg April 22, 2025 at 21:47 #983944
Reply to Outlander Heh, I was uncharacteristically in the alcohol at the time.

But more or less clowning around. I had been watching a friend play some action rpg and some people in the chat were talking about caps on the abilities. And it occured to me that "no cap" aka truth means the true value vs the capped value, hence "no cap" means "true/truth/no lie."
T Clark April 23, 2025 at 03:01 #983997
Some philosophical thoughts not worth their own thread.

Poetry and humor both act by overflowing language and intellect and diving directly to whatever lies beneath consciousness. I suppose other arts such as music and painting do the same, but poetry and humor do it with words.

Science used to be seen as a part of philosophy. When they split the study of the external world - science - separated from the study of the internal world - philosophy.

All human history, philosophy, and politics can be understood as the result of men's fear of and resentment for women's disdain.

And that's the name of that tune.
Benkei April 23, 2025 at 08:14 #984019
A bit of schadenfreude right here:

Tesla's core automotive revenue dropped by 20% year-over-year to $14 billion, the weakest since Q3 2021. The company’s operating profit was bolstered by $595 million in regulatory credit sales, which means that without these credits, Tesla would have reported a loss from its main business operations. Gross margins also fell, and vehicle deliveries were down nearly 13% compared to the previous year.

As you can tell, I'm not a fan of Musk.
Christoffer April 23, 2025 at 08:48 #984023
Quoting Benkei
As you can tell, I'm not a fan of Musk.


Even those who were fans years ago aren’t anymore. The only fans left are delusional cryptobros and people unable to shake their cognitive bias.
fdrake April 23, 2025 at 10:11 #984033
Quoting Christoffer
Even those who were fans years ago aren’t anymore. The only fans left are delusional cryptobros and people unable to shake their cognitive bias.


I still like that Teslas have a fart button. That's about it.
Metaphysician Undercover April 23, 2025 at 12:32 #984052
Quoting Benkei
Tesla's core automotive revenue dropped by 20% year-over-year to $14 billion, the weakest since Q3 2021.


No wonder, the current president of the US is bent on keeping gas prices low (drill baby drill), enshrining the internal combustion engine as king of the land. The romantic hot rod has yielded to an onslaught of pickups. The Cybertruck was doomed to failure in that market.
jorndoe April 23, 2025 at 18:39 #984109
Looks like someone managed to sneak parts of Project 2025 in with Tennessee Bill 878. For ordained ministers to decide for themselves who they want to marry and not seems...alright I suppose, yet the writing is on the wall. It's about Christian nationalism and getting it into the law.
Shawn April 23, 2025 at 21:29 #984131
Pig...?
T Clark April 23, 2025 at 21:38 #984132
Quoting jorndoe
For ordained ministers to decide for themselves who they want to marry


That seems reasonable. Do you really think we should force ministers to marry gay people if they have moral objections?
Hanover April 23, 2025 at 22:32 #984139
Quoting T Clark
Do you really think we should force ministers to marry gay people if they have moral objections?


Definitely. Having an officiant that despises you makes the loveliest of ceremonies.

I wish I could have had a wedding with bubbe, zaide, and the whole mishpacha assembled, performed by an imposing Nazi in full regalia.
Sir2u April 24, 2025 at 00:18 #984157
Quoting T Clark
Do you really think we should force ministers to marry gay people if they have moral objections?


Ministers, priests and in some places mayors are legally allowed to marry people. That should stop. For a thing as serious as getting married there should be people trained, licensed and payed to do so on behalf of the government and they should have no option to refuse to do so as long as you are not breaking any laws.

But then the whole idea of romantic marriage is losing ground, maybe everyone that so wishes should just sign a contract for the desired conditions and time period.
Hanover April 24, 2025 at 00:37 #984158
Reply to Sir2u There's nothing complex that requires training to fill out marriage forms. Even though if you limited marriage officiating to state workers, you'd still have people wanting to have their own particular ceremonies, even if those ceremonies had no legal significance.

You will then still be stuck with the question at hand: must a minister opposed to gay union ceremonies be required to perform one?

It's the same question regarding whether an anti gay cake maker must make a cake for a gay couple?

Substitute gay for differing races, ethnicities, religion, etc.

Sir2u April 24, 2025 at 01:25 #984165
Where I live, only state authorized marriages have legal value. If people insist on religious weddings ceremonies then it would be up to them to find a place that will marry them.
Same sex marriages are still in the process of being legalized.

Quoting Hanover
you'd still have people wanting to have their own particular ceremonies, even if those ceremonies had no legal significance.

You will then still be stuck with the question at hand: must a minister opposed to gay union ceremonies be required to perform one?


I really don't think that there should be any need to force anyone to perform a ceremony that they disagree with.
If I belong to a church it is supposedly because I agree with their rules and philosophies, otherwise I would find somewhere else to worship. So if the minister refuses to officiate my marriage then I must be in the wrong church. Why would I want to be married in a church that does not represent, embrace, and support my life choices and love me as I am?

To try and force a minister to go against their own values and marry a gay couple is idiotic, why would I even want the person to bless my union?
The people that try to force other to do things and offer to sue if the do not are attention and easy money seekers mostly looking for people to blame for their own shortcomings. Nowadays there are lots of options available, so why pick on one that you know will cause trouble?

Quoting Hanover
It's the same question regarding whether an anti gay cake maker must make a cake for a gay couple?


No one is obliged to make anything for anybody, especially if it is your own business. But again, why would I even want someone that despises my way of life to make a cake for me?
How many people have tried to sue Pizza Hut because they refused to serve hamburgers? Yes I know there is a difference, but why would the cake maker make a cake that is not on his personal menu or list of products offered?

Quoting Hanover
Substitute gay for differing races, ethnicities, religion, etc.


Yep, you can do that for almost any human characteristic. What about the landlords that discriminate against cat lovers, or the house builders that make doors 6' 4" high. Or even the airplane makers that have one size fits all seats, are they discriminating against wide load people. Or is it the peoples' fault for being in that condition?

I am an one of the outsiders here and there is a certain amount of discrimination against us, do you think I should try to force people to bend to my way of thinking and doing things or do I find another way to adapt without causing strife?



jorndoe April 24, 2025 at 01:56 #984169
Reply to T Clark, reasonable not to be forced, sure. Just remember, half a century back (or something in that range), "interracial" was such a "moral objection".
T Clark April 24, 2025 at 02:15 #984176
Quoting Hanover
Definitely. Having an officiant that despises you makes the loveliest of ceremonies.


At my own wedding the only ones who despised me were my wife’s parents.
T Clark April 24, 2025 at 02:20 #984178
Quoting Sir2u
Ministers, priests and in some places mayors are legally allowed to marry people. That should stop. For a thing as serious as getting married there should be people trained, licensed and payed to do so on behalf of the government and they should have no option to refuse to do so as long as you are not breaking any laws.


That doesn’t seem reasonable to me. For many people marriage isn’t primarily a legal agreement, it’s a spiritual one. I do agree that government personnel who are authorized to perform weddings should not be allowed to discriminate.
T Clark April 24, 2025 at 02:24 #984179
Quoting Hanover
It's the same question regarding whether an anti gay cake maker must make a cake for a gay couple?


You’re the lawyer, so you probably know better than I, but I don’t think cake makers can discriminate against gay people. That doesn’t mean they can’t refuse to make a cake for a celebration they find morally offensive, such as a gay wedding.
T Clark April 24, 2025 at 02:31 #984180
Quoting jorndoe
T Clark, reasonable not to be forced, sure. Just remember, half a century back (or something in that range), "interracial" was such a "moral objection".


In Virginia in the United States, where I went to high school, it was not legal for a black person and a white person to marry until my junior year, 1968. That was when the Supreme Court ruled in the most appropriately named court case of all time - Loving versus the Commonwealth of Virginia.
javi2541997 April 24, 2025 at 12:31 #984231
Tomorrow is my birthday, and folks decided to cook Presa Ibérica for me. Sorry @Shawn, I know you are a pig lover, but you are invited to the birthday party anyway. You love the pigs; we eat them (with love).

The fact that... I believe I am getting older... is that I am not in the mood to celebrate my birthday. It comes to the party people I often see during the year, and I receive WhatsApp messages from people I don't want to respond to, but if I don't, I will appear nasty.

Do you know what is going on with me in this moment? My blood contains poison since I came into contact with caterpillars. There are plenty of them in Madrid.

I have urticarial dermatitis on my left hand.
Hopefully, that's not the one I use for eating and masturbation. Phew...
unenlightened April 24, 2025 at 13:48 #984247
Quoting javi2541997
I believe I am getting older...


This is an entirely reasonable belief. Most people are getting older most of the time. There are exceptions; Merlin, Bob Dylan, and myself for examples.
javi2541997 April 24, 2025 at 13:56 #984249
Quoting unenlightened
There are exceptions; Merlin, Bob Dylan, and myself for examples.


I also thought about you, mate. :smile:

Wait, does Mick Jagger deserve to be included in such an exceptional group?
unenlightened April 24, 2025 at 14:44 #984254
Reply to javi2541997 I'm not sure - I don't know him very well, but merely remaining childish for a long time doesn't preclude getting older ...
BC April 24, 2025 at 20:26 #984290
Quoting javi2541997
I believe I am getting older


Whenever you feel the slightest distress about getting older, remember what the alternative is.

Quoting javi2541997
My blood contains poison since I came into contact with caterpillars. There are plenty of them in Madrid.


Coming into contact with a caterpillar could be instantly fatal.

User image
Tom Storm April 24, 2025 at 23:24 #984309
Quoting javi2541997
The fact that... I believe I am getting older... is that I am not in the mood to celebrate my birthday. It comes to the party people I often see during the year, and I receive WhatsApp messages from people I don't want to respond to, but if I don't, I will appear nasty.


Happy birthday, Javi!

I have only had a couple birthday parties in my entire life and they were both when I was under 8. I do not like parties and have assiduously avoided having any for myself.

DifferentiatingEgg April 25, 2025 at 02:51 #984332
Uh oh, my idiotes is showing again. ^_^
javi2541997 April 25, 2025 at 03:59 #984338
Quoting BC
Whenever you feel the slightest distress about getting older, remember what the alternative is.


Join Señor Wences for a show?

Quoting BC
Coming into contact with a caterpillar could be instantly fatal.


Wow! I had those as toys when I was a kid. I never imagined that they would have posed a risk to my well-being. I blame my parents for buying them.
javi2541997 April 25, 2025 at 04:00 #984339
Reply to Tom Storm Thank you, Tom! This is not the first time you've wished me a happy birthday. Wow, have we been friends here that long? Jesus, time flies by.

It is quite reasonable to not celebrate a party when you are no longer a kid, but I gave up: a lot of people started to confirm yesterday afternoon that they will show up today. I'll be an excellent host, though. It's not the right time to be nasty.
BC April 25, 2025 at 05:06 #984342
Reply to javi2541997 ¡feliz cumpleaños! AKA Happy Birthday!

Were I to make you a birthday cake (note the subjunctive tense indicating no such thing is going to happen since you are too far away) I would make Joy of Cooking's Devil's Food Cockaigne, a delicious chocolate cake, best served with whipped cream. If you don't like chocolate cake, the alternative would be Joy of Cooking's Wedding Cake -- a delicious buttery white cake, best served with excellent strawberries.

javi2541997 April 25, 2025 at 05:23 #984343
Reply to BC Muchas gracias Bitter Crank.

Chocolate cake is the best option, IMO. Wedding cake is not suitable here because we are at a birthday, and I hardly see myself married to a woman in the middle-term future. :rofl:

I know I am picky, but I'd love it if you put cookies on the chocolate cake. Honestly, I think cookies and cakes go great together.
jorndoe April 25, 2025 at 05:24 #984344
Haperfday, @javi2541997. :sparkle:
javi2541997 April 25, 2025 at 05:24 #984345
Reply to jorndoe Gracias colega. :100:
Jamal April 25, 2025 at 05:28 #984346
Quoting BC
(note the subjunctive tense indicating no such thing is going to happen since you are too far away)


Actually, when applied to the baking of cakes, the subjunctive indicates it won't happen since you are too lazy to do it.

Happy birthday young, but older, Javi.
javi2541997 April 25, 2025 at 06:18 #984352
Quoting Jamal
Happy birthday young, but older, Javi.


Thank you so much, Jamal. :sparkle:

Will you be baking the cake with @BC then? :yum:
Jamal April 25, 2025 at 06:45 #984353
Reply to javi2541997

I baked it already!

User image
BC April 25, 2025 at 06:49 #984354
Reply to javi2541997 Understand that “wedding cake” is usually a white cake in North America. In some places other kinds of pastry are served at weddings. So, all wedding cakes are white, but not all white cakes are for weddings. It doesn’t matter because you prefer chocolate.

I am afraid I find the concept of cake decorated with cookies heretical. However, it’s your party and you can have cookies embedded in the frosting. What kind of cookies? Oreos? Ginger snaps? What??? Your choice of frosting is chocolate, lemon, or vanilla.
BC April 25, 2025 at 06:51 #984355
Reply to Jamal Shredded coconut is always disgusting, even in miniature.
javi2541997 April 25, 2025 at 06:57 #984356
Reply to Jamal Yummy! :yum:

Reply to BC Cookies are difficult to bake up, indeed.

I'd want to have ginger cookies, similar to those sold in grocery stores, because they're healthful and have a distinct flavour.

Ah, so a wedding cake is just blanco.
Hanover April 25, 2025 at 08:54 #984370
Reply to javi2541997Hopefully it's the same where you live, but here you can usually get a free dessert and sometimes even a free meal at a restaurant on your birthday.

You should start out early and see what free perks you can get. I wouldn't focus so much on quality as much as quantity so that you can maximize your benefit.

Be sure to go to places that will sing you a song. All spotlights need to be on you as you tackle the triple banana split.

Oh, happy birthday also!

javi2541997 April 25, 2025 at 09:28 #984372
Reply to Hanover The only free thing I will get today is a hat (like Cat in the Hat's hat) that says: feliz cumpleaños.

No, we do not have anything free for birthdays. I can probably find it at McDonald's or Popeyes. But I do not like those. I like the average small and dirty Spanish-like bar where the menu costs €20 or less.

Nonetheless, we will stay at home anyway...

Thanks for wishing me a happy birthday! :smile:
Outlander April 25, 2025 at 09:34 #984373
Unlike these cheapskates (I kid, of course) I actually went out of my way to make something special; custom. Well, at least AI did.

User image

Enjoy! (I tried my hardest to make the cake actually say "Happy Birthday, Javi!" but each specific command just ended up a worse and worse disaster so this one will have to do...

"Famous philosophers gathered around a birthday cake with 'Happy Birthday, Javi!' written on it." Not a bad job for a few second wait, I'd say. Don't mind the fact some of them have 6 fingers, some of them have 4, and one has... oh my, not even sure what that one is, but no matter! Perhaps that's actually how they looked. After all, in that day and age and perhaps even today one had to compensate for a deformity by gross levels of intelligence to simply survive. Perhaps, that was the birth of philosophy itself? Ah, we'll never know. Happy birthday. :sparkle:

(For the record I couldn't name a single one if my life depended on it, but that's why I remain a humble fan of the intellectual arts and not a self-proclaimed practitioner) :snicker:
Hanover April 25, 2025 at 10:05 #984375
Reply to Outlander It looks like you've got an assembly of Mormon elders gathered before a cake, preparing for quite an extravaganza.

How we all wish we were a part of it!
javi2541997 April 25, 2025 at 10:20 #984376
Reply to Outlander Interesting painting!

You put this prompt or pattern: "Famous philosophers gathered around a birthday cake with 'Happy Birthday, Javi!' written on it."
But they look like 'Fathers of the Nation' of a country born in the 18th or 19th centuries.

The prompt 'birthday' may have confused the AI (or program), and it generated a reunited group of old, wise and distinctive men commemorating the birth of something important or announcing The Good News or Buena Nueva.

Thanks for wishing me a good birthday. Join us on the rooftop! :smile:
Shawn April 25, 2025 at 19:45 #984459
Pig?
praxis April 25, 2025 at 22:04 #984482
Looks like it says happy bitchday. Don’t know what that’s about.

User image
Hanover April 25, 2025 at 23:54 #984518
God eating a rainbow. User image
Hanover April 26, 2025 at 00:04 #984525
One more. I call this "Angel prayer crying curb stomping satan baby's fang evil dark rain vomiting cloud thunderclap."

User image
frank April 26, 2025 at 00:07 #984528
Reply to Hanover
I remember that night. It was fucked up.
Metaphysician Undercover April 26, 2025 at 00:11 #984530
Reply to frank
I'd say it's pretty fucked up. But you don't want to know what really fucked up is like.
Hanover April 26, 2025 at 00:35 #984534
Reply to frank The disinterested curb stomp is a nice touch, as if the angel has just propped her sandal up to adjust it, but instead crushed a vomiting demon child.
javi2541997 April 26, 2025 at 06:25 #984564
Reply to praxis Love it! :lol:

Most days are bitchdays, indeed. So, don't worry, the cake will still be with me on Monday.
kazan April 26, 2025 at 07:03 #984568
@javi2541997

Perhaps, "Many happy returns of the day, Javi" would suit your current mood. At least that suggests you can have options, in the future.

Cheers, mate smile
javi2541997 April 26, 2025 at 10:56 #984577
Reply to kazan Cheers, mate. :cool:
Hanover April 26, 2025 at 11:05 #984578
Your birthday only comes once a lifetime unless you're reborn, but i don't mean that in a religious way. I mean that in a literal way, which is very very awkward, challenging most parent/child expectation and sense of normalacy.
frank April 26, 2025 at 12:24 #984591


Maybe the angel goes around accidentally c-stomping demon babies while trying to adjust her sandal.
Shawn April 27, 2025 at 00:34 #984683
A pig sometimes squeals in the forest for no reason, while other animals ask the pig if it is OK. The pig replies, "Half of one six a dozen of the other."

Then the animals agree with themselves that the pig is a good animal.
Outlander April 27, 2025 at 07:05 #984721
Like I'm trying to get into Jamal's "Negative DIaletics" topic. Now I understand. Some things here are just above my head. Which is why I like this place. So I asked AI. This is what it produced from a prompt of "Negative Dialetics".

User image

Somehow, I feel enlightened. Falsely? Perhaps. Nevertheless.
Jamal April 27, 2025 at 07:08 #984722
Quoting Outlander
Somehow, I feel enlightened. Falsely?


Yes and no.
frank April 27, 2025 at 10:38 #984731
My head is a snow globe
I shake it when people ask me questions
I put a beanie on it.
Hanover April 27, 2025 at 10:59 #984733
On Adorno:

The negative dialectics thread necessitates negative energy, which makes it to me forbidden, but even its existence fulfills greatness, just without me, exactly as it should be.

By not engaging, I refuse to allow the fulfillment of the dialectic, leaving the tension between my unrestrained positivity bias and its negative opposite. Mine is therefore true ethical achievement, maintaing integrity to the broken that shouldn't be made whole. It is an ironic compliance with the negative dialectic I reject, proving, again ironically, all is positive.

But true to my bias I hold that all blades of grass have purpose, even those crushed, with particular value afforded those that have been crushed but remained resilient. Such is the power of the broken, although I ask that the word "fractured" be used to better eliminate any negative connotation of "broken." How we think matters.

Anyway, such are my views on Adorno, where he meets Schneerson, but such does not result in a dancing whole. That would lessen the both of them. Oil should be oil and water water. That's true.

Maybe I understand this. Maybe not. In the end, it's what I get out of it.
DifferentiatingEgg April 27, 2025 at 11:08 #984734
Pretty certain I don't give a fuck about the whole gender sex debate because I've 0 insecurity in that regard. Anyone who does care holds some insecurity with regard to sex and gender.
Hanover April 27, 2025 at 11:21 #984736
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Pretty certain I don't give a fuck about the whole gender sex debate because I've 0 insecurity in that regard. Anyone who does care holds some insecurity with regard to sex and gender.


If someone thinks men shouldn't compete in women's sports and your response is that tthey must have deep rooted sexual insecurity to say that, the problem would be your non sequiter, not their insecurity, even if one existed.

Right?
DifferentiatingEgg April 27, 2025 at 11:56 #984740
Reply to Hanover Nah, the problem would still be held with those people who got their underpants in a knotted wad over it. And yeah, women want to be seen as equals, let them prove it.

Women who entered into mens sports and outperformed men would receive a standing ovation.

When it's the other way round you get bitchy because you perceive women as lesser. Something that ought be caged and protected.

The Transgenderism thing is a big splash right now because for the past 3500 years "woman" has been repressed, also too effeminacy in men, which is responsible for the highest form of metaphysical expression through art.

You Apollonian line in the sanders don't realizing the mental box you're living within. Or perhaps you do, and simply prefer the box.

Let's say, your house, all of your academic achievements, all the paperwork bullshit, what really is all that in the eyes of nature? Of the element and essence we belong to? The way choose your assets to be split up among whomever, upon your death, all of that just some farce you hold on to in an attempt to feel some sense about who you are... when really it's so much simpler.

We are like very beasts you see living outside. But we can rationalize. So everything seems so different. Have tou ever lived with a non domesticated animal before?

Whose to say Transgenderism isn't a style of personal and aesthetic metaphysics?

What if man can do "woman" better because "woman" is created from man's ideal?

Perhaps women have to remove themselves from "woman" all together to be rid of the tyranny of man.

What you fail to see:

As long as a woman remains within the definition of "woman" as created by man's ideal, she is already imprisoned — even when she tries to resist, because the frame itself is not hers.

But all of that is whatever really, I'm human, and so are they, at the end of the day.

Denying them that is just a style of control ultimately, some style of overcoming some insecurity.

Shawn April 27, 2025 at 19:30 #984805
Pig?
T Clark April 27, 2025 at 20:05 #984809
Reply to DifferentiatingEgg
Creepy pseudo-philosophical psychobaloney.
Hanover April 27, 2025 at 20:42 #984812
Quoting T Clark
Creepy pseudo-philosophical psychobaloney.


The response seemed to belie his prefatory "Pretty certain I don't give a fuck about the whole gender sex..." What followed, even if dubious, was from someone who gives a fuck.
Shawn April 27, 2025 at 22:09 #984819
A pig sometimes wallows and forages. Regarding pigs you can be sure they are homey and good animals.

Please be kind to pigs and do not shout at them.
Hanover April 27, 2025 at 23:20 #984829
Got a new app that allows me to write lyrics and it sings them and puts it to music. My first effort. Let me know your thoughts.

Metaphysician Undercover April 28, 2025 at 01:44 #984856
Reply to Hanover
Does the app choose the music genre based on the lyrics? Or do you choose it? It seems to have a country bias, but maybe it just chose that because you're talking about hopping like a bunny.

Riddle: How many verses makes a universe?
Answer: Technically one, but that one is really the chorus, so the verses actually make a multiverse.
Hanover April 28, 2025 at 01:57 #984857
Reply to Metaphysician Undercover You can choose the genre. That one was "psychedelic folk," which I guess is like the Dead or something.
Shawn April 28, 2025 at 02:25 #984858
Pig?
javi2541997 April 28, 2025 at 05:26 #984865
Mates, I will continue with my summary of Mishima's 'Sun and Steel' in the current 'reading group' thread later on (afternoon; around 19:00 or so).

I was run out of Internet yesterday.

Sorry for the delay. :up: :monkey:
Outlander April 28, 2025 at 09:57 #984881
@I like sushi You've been away a while! Also, your channel is down. I enjoyed your musings. Great content during breakfast or even anytime when coming off from alcohol. Heh, and I mean that in the best of ways. Intellectually stimulating yet casual enough to have on even in the background. Invaluably unique. Sort of like watching a Chomsky interview. I mean, you know. More or less. Don't get a swell head now. :grin:
I like sushi April 28, 2025 at 10:11 #984882
Reply to Outlander Surprised anyone here looked at all. It is back up now (I just changed the name). If you leave the odd comment here (or anyone else) it does inspire me to keep it going. Will be making more in the near future I hope for several reasons

Might do some more rambles soon in reference to the book review on Philosophy of the Home.
DifferentiatingEgg April 28, 2025 at 10:42 #984883
Reply to Hanover The only time I ever think about it is coming to this website where there are a bunch of lame weenies who give a fuck about it. That you give a fuck so much how another person details themselves speaks a mile about how insecure you are. Hope your kids transition just to ruin your world. Hope everyone here who reviles others for this issue has to deal with it directly. See if they can love beyond the insecurity of their prejudice metaphysics. Their metaphysics of ressentiment. "Fuck your experience, only science dictates facts" you're all like doctors who can't actually diagnose a damn thing even after an MRI.
DifferentiatingEgg April 28, 2025 at 10:46 #984884
Reply to T Clark Rather be Creepy than a dumbass who doesn't understand a metaphysics when they see one. Something I said "sinned" against you. Hence the feeling of "away from which." But unfortunately for you transgenderism is part of the human condition and it was before you were born and will be after you die.
Metaphysician Undercover April 28, 2025 at 12:26 #984889
Quoting Hanover
Got a new app that allows me to write lyrics and it sings them and puts it to music.


What if you produce a hit? Does the fine print make you share the royalties?
T Clark April 28, 2025 at 14:09 #984895
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
?T Clark Rather be Creepy than a dumbass


There’s another one of the many differences between us. I, personally, would rather be a dumbass than creepy.
Hanover April 28, 2025 at 14:21 #984896
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
What if you produce a hit? Does the fine print make you share the royalties?


That's a problem I'd like to have to deal with I guess.
DifferentiatingEgg April 28, 2025 at 17:31 #984907
Reply to T Clark Well, I doubt you're either, so cheers? Though it's interesting you find something I said creepy. It's very rare that I find anything to be "creepy." Though the feeling of soapy and gritty (combined) between my toes gives me the heebies?
javi2541997 April 28, 2025 at 20:05 #984921
Quoting javi2541997
I was run out of Internet yesterday.


And we had a blackout for 10 hours during the whole day.

Folks don’t discard that we received a cyberattack on our power network.

Spain and Portugal hit by unexplained power blackout, wiping out traffic lights and causing travel chaos

Our President says that a cyberattack could not really be the cause. But who can trust politicians nowadays?

Oh, and thanks to France and Morocco for supplying us power during the day.
Outlander April 28, 2025 at 20:27 #984922
Quoting javi2541997
I was run out of Internet yesterday.


I first read this as literally being "ran out", like as if you were forced out of using the Internet ever again by someone or something. Which inspired the following AI works of "art?"

User image
"Javi being ran out of the Internet."

User image
"Javi being ran out of the Internet. Part II."

(Just a language pun I chuckled at. No deep meaning.)
javi2541997 April 28, 2025 at 21:01 #984923
Reply to Outlander The first painting captures all I have experienced throughout the blackout this morning. :lol:
Moliere April 28, 2025 at 21:47 #984931
Reply to javi2541997 Glad to see you're able to respond. News of the blackout reached me today and I wondered if it effected you.
javi2541997 April 29, 2025 at 04:01 #984977
Reply to Moliere The blackout affected all the Península, and we still can't know why. The power went out at 12:30 PM and came back on at 22:30. It took a lot to reset it. 'Red Eléctrica' (our national power supplier) said that the megawatts plummeted to zero mysteriously around 12:30 yesterday. We have never experienced anything like this before.

We celebrated the return of power in the same way that we do when the Spanish national team scores a goal. :lol:

Hanover April 30, 2025 at 16:09 #985237
It's better to light one small light than to curse the darkness.
javi2541997 April 30, 2025 at 18:24 #985250
Reply to Hanover I agree.

However, I believe that the inconvenience of last Monday was the absence of candles in my home. We got rid of candles because we trusted the power grid more than it deserved. But that's the era we are currently living in. Instead of using a horse to go to another place, we buy cars, etc.
Hanover April 30, 2025 at 19:45 #985257
Quoting javi2541997
However, I believe that the inconvenience of last Monday was the absence of candles in my home. We got rid of candles because we trusted the power grid more than it deserved. But that's the era we are currently living in. Instead of using a horse to go to another place, we buy cars, etc.


But "one small candle" might be a metaphor, in which case complaining about the absence of an actual candle might be an example of cursing the darkness, metaphorically and literally, ironically.
javi2541997 April 30, 2025 at 20:33 #985266
Reply to Hanover The best example of lighting one small candle metaphorically is my unbreakable friendship with Clarky (a.k.a. @T Clark).
Hanover April 30, 2025 at 20:37 #985270
Quoting javi2541997
The best example of lighting one small candle metaphorically is my unbreakable friendship with Clarky (a.k.a. T Clark).


So you're saying that you befriended Clarky in order to bring more light into the world? Was that the intent going in, or was that just an added bonus?
Shawn April 30, 2025 at 20:58 #985274
Pig?
BC May 01, 2025 at 01:02 #985320
Reply to Hanover Befriending T Clark is clearly the act of a generous good Samaritan. Extra stars in his crown. However, since T Clark already existed before Javi's kindly act, the light he brought into the world (however much or little that might be) also already existed.

Quoting javi2541997
However, I believe that the inconvenience of last Monday was the absence of candles in my home. We got rid of candles because we trusted the power grid more than it deserved.


Did Jesus not say, "Put not thy trust in the reliability of machines built by mortals, who do not build beyond the next quarterly profit report? I tell you, go out and buy a supply of premium beeswax candles (which are the kind we use in Heaven)."

Don't you all put candles on the dining table for special events or special company? Don't you light a candle in the T Clark shrine?

T Clark May 01, 2025 at 01:52 #985327
javi2541997 May 01, 2025 at 04:09 #985337
Quoting Hanover
So you're saying that you befriended Clarky in order to bring more light into the world?


Exactly. Because when I was born everything was a dark pit, and I thought it was necessary to light up a candle.

Quoting BC
Don't you all put candles on the dining table for special events or special company?


Yes! But I no longer have special events at my home; my solitude has increased over the past years. If my memory works well, the dinner with @baker was the last special event.

I still want candles in my home. I can light them whenever I want; for example, it is 06:03 AM now, and I am wasting electricity with a dumb lamp.

Reply to T Clark Thumbs up! :up:
BC May 01, 2025 at 05:59 #985341
Quoting javi2541997
But I no longer have special events at my home


Look at it this way: Every day is holy, so you can light a candle any time.

Hanover May 01, 2025 at 13:29 #985391
Quoting BC
Look at it this way: Every day is holy, so you can light a candle any time.


If every day is a holy day, then what do we call holidays?
Shawn May 01, 2025 at 14:28 #985412
Pig?
javi2541997 May 01, 2025 at 14:35 #985415
Quoting Hanover
If every day is a holy day, then what do we call holidays?


Easy question with a plausible answer.

We call it 'vacaciones.'
jorndoe May 01, 2025 at 14:37 #985416
Lies Our Machines Tell Us: Why the New Generation of “Reasoning” AIs Can’t be Trusted
[sup]— Gleb Lisikh · C2C Journal · Apr 16, 2025[/sup]

Predictable I'd say.

‘We’re citizens!’: Oklahoma City family traumatized after ICE raids home, but they weren’t suspects
[sup]— Spencer Humphrey · KFOR · Apr 29, 2025[/sup]

Are those ICE people (or whatever they are) intentionally looking for trouble or something?

javi2541997 May 01, 2025 at 14:53 #985422
Reply to jorndoe My English teacher Alina taught me that an ICE cream goes well with pistachio; I never thought it would threaten innocent people in the glorious and quiet American state of 'Oklahoma.'

Count Timothy von Icarus May 01, 2025 at 16:44 #985444
I may have missed my chance to brag that the New York Mets have the best record in all of Major League Baseball (they are now tied for that honor). This could be the year! Pete Alonso for MVP!

They'll have to be the ones to lift the Knicks/Mets combined near century long championship drought because, even if the Knicks do get it together and dispatch Detroit, it's hard to imagine them beating Boston. It'll be close but my money is on the Jays becoming the first guys to win back to back championships in a decade. Last time they played Cleveland (their real competition in the East) they combined for 83 points and Tatum had a triple double. Granted, they lost, but their losses came with key starters out, not at full strength.

I thought a Luka/Bron Celtics/Lakers Finals could be cool, but so much for that. Maybe a Steph Curry/Jimmy Butler Finals rematch would be cool though.
Outlander May 01, 2025 at 16:55 #985450
Reply to Count Timothy von Icarus

Huh. Didn't peg you as a sports guy. Learn something new everyday I suppose. Nice of you to grace our humble Shoutbox for the first time in forever.
BC May 02, 2025 at 00:45 #985530
Reply to Hanover A downside of the 'every day a holy day' scheme is that there are no "holidays". A simultaneous upside and downside of no holidays is there is no gift giving or gift getting. That's fine when one has aged out of the accumulation phase of life and is just trying to get rid of stuff nobody wants. Like, I have an old ice box with a very nice wood exterior wood which I refinished about 50 years ago. I can't even give it away.
frank May 02, 2025 at 01:12 #985535
Reply to BC
I listened to Jimi Hendrix playing the star spangled banner with explosions at Woodstock and now I can't get it out of my head. I'm going around humming it making the explosion sounds.
BC May 02, 2025 at 03:42 #985548
Reply to frank Hendrix's rendition is a classic for the ages. Hopefully you won't have to wait ages for it to stop resounding in your head.
Hanover May 02, 2025 at 03:47 #985549
Reply to BC But holy days aren't really known as gift giving days other than Christmas. Most holidays you just have to remember something important and pretend to be serious.

Imagine having to do that every day. It'd be exhausting. Not to be an ingrate, but there's just so much appreciation I can have for past struggles and sacrifice.
Hanover May 02, 2025 at 03:53 #985550
Quoting frank
listened to Jimi Hendrix playing the star spangled banner with explosions at Woodstock and now I can't get it out of my head. I'm going around humming it making the explosion sounds.


This is a better lyric to have running through your head:

"Well, I stand up next to a mountain
And I chop it down with the edge of my hand"

Or, going in a different direction, let this hook permeate your every thought:




BC May 02, 2025 at 04:13 #985551
Reply to Hanover I get the Buggles and the Bangles mixed up.

frank May 02, 2025 at 10:43 #985592
Quoting BC
Hendrix's rendition is a classic for the ages.


It's amazing. I'm thinking everybody there was on LSD.

Quoting Hanover
Well, I stand up next to a mountain
And I chop it down with the edge of my hand"


Explosion, explosion, explosion

Hanover May 02, 2025 at 12:08 #985612
Quoting BC
I get the Buggles and the Bangles mixed up.


I know what you mean. I get Flock of Seagulls and the Byrds mixed up.


Metaphysician Undercover May 02, 2025 at 12:14 #985614
Quoting frank
I'm thinking everybody there was on LSD.


Duh...
frank May 02, 2025 at 12:53 #985619
Reply to Hanover
They don't sound alike
Hanover May 02, 2025 at 13:16 #985621
Quoting frank
They don't sound alike


They both are volucrine.
frank May 02, 2025 at 13:24 #985624
There actually is a band called Volucrine. They're from Finland
BC May 02, 2025 at 20:29 #985649
@Frank Reply to Metaphysician Undercover Country Joe McDonald tried to get the Woodstock crowd to sing the "Fixing To Die Rag". After one verse he said, "Listen people, I don't know how you expect to ever stop the war if you can't sing any better than that. There are about 300,000 of you fuckers out there. I want you to start singing!"
Outlander May 02, 2025 at 20:30 #985650
Quoting Hanover
They both are volucrine.


Not aviary? :chin:
Hanover May 02, 2025 at 23:45 #985673
Quoting Outlander
Not aviary?


Perhaps avian, as in related to birds, but not aviary, as in a large cage for birds.
frank May 03, 2025 at 00:29 #985679
Reply to BC
:grin:
Outlander May 03, 2025 at 00:31 #985680
Quoting Hanover
Perhaps avian, as in related to birds, but not aviary, as in a large cage for birds.


That's what it is! You are smart. A little too smart. Well, anyhow. I wonder which term came first and what sort of debate (if any) spurred the creation of a second, superfluous term (unless the two are distinctly different in some minor aspect, which they don't appear to be).

"Volucrine" I had to Google. But apparently, at least to a casual observer, seems interchangeable. To me, "volucrine" sounds like some sort of bodily fluid or substance responsible for social interaction and if it becomes elevated results in persons excessively volunteering in their communities. Or perhaps if pronounced quickly where the "u" sound is minimized, sounds too much like describing something relating to volcanoes, thus spurring the creation of the new (and more apt) term "avian". Perhaps we'll never know. No big whoop. I sometimes pity the soul who lives a life without a single mystery left to be unearthed or uncovered.
Hanover May 03, 2025 at 12:06 #985726
Had the ancient Hebrews been enslaved by Pharoah into the 1920s, their fleeing through the parting sea would have had a much more dust bowl Grapes of Wrath feel to it:

User image
BC May 03, 2025 at 19:08 #985761
Reply to Hanover Moses seems to have 3 arms.
Hanover May 03, 2025 at 19:24 #985763
Quoting BC
Moses seems to have 3 arms.

Good catch. Not enough arms. I fixed it.

User image

Hanover May 03, 2025 at 19:34 #985764
And finally, I asked for this obvious modification that I knew you guys wanted:

" Now again, but instead of hands have them wearing those big foam #1 gloves they use at sporting events and put mogen david stars on them"

User image

The floating 5 hand is a nice touch.
Hanover May 03, 2025 at 19:37 #985765
Reply to BC In the last picture, I do believe Moses bears a striking resemblance to you.

Is it possible that you are Moshe Rabbeinu?
Jamal May 03, 2025 at 20:01 #985770
Reply to Hanover

I need to know who this little fella is.

User image
Hanover May 03, 2025 at 20:20 #985771
Reply to Jamal Why that's Chaim Pingie, the sweet but sometimes mischievous shtetl penguin.
jorndoe May 03, 2025 at 22:51 #985786
As more countries enter space, the boundary between civilian and military enterprise is blurring. Dangerously.
[sup]— Zohaib Altaf · Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists · Apr 9, 2025[/sup]

What would it take for people + societies to chill?
BC May 03, 2025 at 22:59 #985788
Quoting Hanover
Is it possible that you are Moshe Rabbeinu?


That's probably why people are always asking me for directions to get the hell out of Egypt. I tell them they're a long ways from the nearest pyramid, so STFU.
jorndoe May 03, 2025 at 23:41 #985798
Reply to Hanover, Reply to Jamal, but who's in the back of the car...?

User image

Hanover May 04, 2025 at 00:38 #985813
Quoting jorndoe
but who's in the back of the car


That's Steve, a guy who hitched a ride from the pub, not realizing he was being made part of a fleeing people's historic exodus. He would spend the next 40 years forced to endure life with these people, without any companions other than a frum penguin and a floating 5 hand that both somehow fit into this story.






















jorndoe May 04, 2025 at 01:32 #985839
I want one. But what's the range?

Watch This New ‘Star Wars’-Style Speeder Bike Fly at Almost 125 MPH (— Michael Verdon · Robb Report · May 1, 2025)
Poland’s Volonaut Airbike Brings Star Wars-Style Personal Flight to Reality (— Ryan Hansen · Gadget Review · May 2, 2025)

Reply to Hanover, Steve should have had one.

Hanover May 04, 2025 at 15:01 #985961
Quoting jorndoe
Steve should have had one.


A flying bicycle would be absurdly anachronistic in the roaring 20s Egyptian exodus setting I've laid out.

I'd like for the newly emancipated to settle in to an understated art deco environment once situated, as opposed to some sort of steam punk futuristic whatever, which will not be taken seriously, particularly by Steve, the appointed standard bearer.
Outlander May 04, 2025 at 22:58 #986021
Quoting jorndoe
As more countries enter space, the boundary between civilian and military enterprise is blurring. Dangerously.
— Zohaib Altaf · Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists · Apr 9, 2025

What would it take for people + societies to chill?


Honestly? Little short of absolute monarchy I'm afraid. That or a literal Ice Age. :smirk:

Frankly, and while it may be an unpopular opinion, I'd say it's fairly self evident that the longevity of the human race was much less bleak than it is today back when only wealthy, educated elites were able to read. Think about it. Miniaturization coupled with technological advancement ("readily-available-ness" meets cheapness) spells a whole new level of horror on the horizon; a modern day Pandora's Box. How long before people are buying miniature drones the size of a housefly that can enter just about anywhere, residences, military bases etc. to spy on one another and remove all notion of privacy? How long before any school boy can walk into a hardware or science supply store and in half an hour of following instructions online make some sort of neurological disruption ray that can incapacitate a person or give them a seizure from 300 yards away using supplies, equipment, and materials that cost less than a large pizza?

These things are coming friends, make no mistake. Unless humanity actively makes plans to metaphorically "kill the dragon while it's young" or "slap/sever the foolish hand of man that is firmly set atop Pandora's Box. ever so eager to open it completely ignorant of what his actions will unleash on the world". The only question is: how? :chin:
Outlander May 04, 2025 at 23:08 #986022
In other news, me and my cat have recently converted to Luddism.
Outlander May 05, 2025 at 00:22 #986029
I don't like the word "scurrilous". It makes it seem like telling the truth, attempting to clarify, or otherwise trying to protect others from true and actual possible harm is somehow supposed to be a negative thing. If it's a lie, then you can call it a lie and be done with it. To me, it just seems like someone got annoyed their actions finally caught up with them and had to spawn a new word to continue to detract from their own undesirable nature. But who knows. I wasn't there.
BC May 05, 2025 at 00:41 #986032
Reply to Outlander Congratulations! Your appear to be the first person on The Philosophy Forum to object to the term, 'scurrilous'. Odd that you find it objectionable, but carry on.

Scurrilous (and its much rarer relation scurrile, which has the same meaning) comes from the Middle French word scurrile, which comes ultimately from the Latin noun scurra, meaning “buffoon” or “jester.” Fittingly, 18th-century lexicographer Samuel Johnson defined scurrilous as “using such language as only the licence of a buffoon could warrant.” Qualities traditionally associated with buffoonery—vulgarity, irreverence, and indecorousness—are qualities often invoked by the word scurrilous. Unlike the words of a jester, however, “scurrilous” language of the present day more often intends to seriously harm or slander someone than to produce a few laughs.


'Scurrilous' was brought into English in the 15th century, a period of unusually bountiful word coinage. From your POV, I'm not sure who the guilty party was.
Hanover May 05, 2025 at 00:43 #986033
Reply to Outlander I disagree to the extent you're suggesting that a harmful statement that serves no purpose but to harm is acceptable as long as it's true. If it is spoken to protect others from harm, I'd agree it can be said, but only to the extent necessary to protect.

You don't get to gossip and wreck lives and declare yourself Honest Abe and free of sin.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lashon_hara
Shawn May 05, 2025 at 00:51 #986036
Pig?
T Clark May 05, 2025 at 01:41 #986041
Reply to Outlander
I think you’ve gotten the definition of scurrilous wrong. This is what it says in the Cambridge dictionary - “Expressing unfair or false criticism that is likely to damage someone's reputation”
Outlander May 05, 2025 at 01:48 #986043
Quoting Hanover
I disagree to the extent you're suggesting that a harmful statement that serves no purpose but to harm is acceptable as long as it's true.


Sure. If someone happens to be, say, I don't know, grossly overweight or perhaps short or disabled and you just say "Ha, that person is [so on and so forth].", that's quite rude and inappropriate for any member of a sophisticated and moral society. Rights aside, of course. As it would be for someone who say, killed a person drunk driving, has served their time, and all another person does is bring it up over and over to everyone who comes or would come into contact with them with the intent of painting them in a negative light. That's fine. I get that.

Quoting Hanover
If it is spoken to protect others from harm, I'd agree it can be said, but only to the extent necessary to protect.

You don't get to gossip and wreck lives and declare yourself Honest Abe and free of sin.


I agree. Meanwhile, in my situation (true story BTW), I was recently asked by an older family member why I don't seem to particularly favor (or perhaps even seem to harbor distrust toward) a particular person in our community. Now, bear in mind I've literally never said a single negative thing about this person in my life. I just hear what people say about said person, very true things I might add. This person is no saint. Just to give context. Perhaps at worst when it comes up I'll be like "yeah I did hear something like that." But nothing beyond that.

So, this person is actually a close(?) associate and even business partner with this other guy who, at least on more than one occasion said things that are rather... unprofessional. Intentionally belittling and demeaning to me. Now I don't know about you, but to me, that suggests that he is of low moral character and otherwise untrustworthy. Not a person I would consider to be "good company" or that anyone who is trustworthy, moral, or of the character I would consider to be "trustworthy" would associate with. And that's not just my lone little random opinion. This is time tested wisdom. "You're only as good as the company you keep", "you are you hang around with", etc., etc., I could go on.

Beyond that, to me, it just seems like, if you're going to soberly, intently, and purposely say and do things to someone's face, you shouldn't have a problem with people talking about it. Especially when they seemed proud to have done so at the time. Basically, I was asked why I feel (or don't feel) a certain way about a person and gave an honest answer. The idea that someone could even possibly construe such a basic, private, and above all factual statement as "scurrilous." That's what bothers me. And I know there's people out there who would. That's the disconnect or strife or whatever I feel as far as possible misuse (or even apt use?) of the word. People misuse words all the time, is all my point really was. Anyway. No matter. Just what was going through my mind at the time. If anyone was curious.

Edit: Not that it matters but just as some bonus context, this older family member of mine has significant ways and means to disrupt the financial well-being (business arrangement) of this person who I found rude/unprofessional/untrustworthy (and he's quite well off at this point so don't feel bad). I haven't seen him around for a while, frankly. Which leads me to, on occasion, wonder if something was done as a result of my (true and directly solicited) statement. Which I doubt. I'm not really all that important where I come from. :lol:
Shawn May 05, 2025 at 02:04 #986047
Reply to jorndoe

This is a painting upon a painting.
Hanover May 05, 2025 at 02:07 #986048
Quoting Shawn
This is a painting upon a painting


Pig?
Hanover May 05, 2025 at 02:37 #986049
Reply to Outlander But if you were called scurrilous, then they were critical of you, not them, which means this guy not only dissed you, but you got dissed by your other friend when you dissed the disser.

If I got this right, you were like that piece of shit is a piece of shit, and they were like, you're a piece of shit to call someone a piece of shit, and you are like, that's shitty, all I did was call a piece of shit a piece of shit,right?

Then you come here looking for hugs and all you get is typical philosophy this and that. I mean can't we just give you the hug you came looking for?

Pigs?
Outlander May 05, 2025 at 04:01 #986054
Reply to Hanover I actually wasn't called "scurrilous" no, just the recent exchange in the "Negative Dialectics" thread featured the use of that particular word half a dozen times prompting me to look it up and combined with the semi-recent real life exchange I described made me think... wait a minute, that word (according to Google) means "saying something that [whether intentionally or not] results in disparagement" and reminded me of said real life situation. So I was just like... wait a minute... so I can say, or rather respond to a direct question with, something completely factual, that technically yes results in (rather, revelation of someone being revealed to be in) negative light, and I can technically be called that word, for doing the right thing, when asked, directly.

See, in my head, that's a light bulb going off that says "wait a minute... that word is liable to be misused by people who are really just not that good of people who painted themself into a corner and deserve whatever they get." That. My dear online acquaintance, is what went on. In case you or anyone was curious. True story. :razz:
jorndoe May 05, 2025 at 04:11 #986058
Quoting Outlander
Honestly? Little short of absolute monarchy I'm afraid. That or a literal Ice Age. :smirk:


As long as the monarch is chill. ;)

Shawn May 05, 2025 at 04:21 #986060
Shawn May 05, 2025 at 05:10 #986064
Here are some country pigs just chilling around:

User image
kazan May 05, 2025 at 05:33 #986067
Quoting Hanover
Your birthday only comes once a lifetime unless you're reborn, but i don't mean that in a religious way. I mean that in a literal way, which is very very awkward, challenging most parent/child expectation and sense of normalacy.


Saves us wondering about some stuff

cheery smile
kazan May 05, 2025 at 05:53 #986073
Quoting Shawn
Pig?


Yes please. Been MIA for awhile. So, sorry your offer was not taken up less tardily.

And then missed by 42 minutes....lol.

cheery smile
Shawn May 05, 2025 at 06:41 #986080
Reply to kazan

Yes, those country pigs know what is good, because they are good.
kazan May 05, 2025 at 06:49 #986082
Quoting Shawn
Yes, those country pigs know what is good, because they are good.


Good on 'em!

light smile
Outlander May 05, 2025 at 07:19 #986089
I feel a deep sense of unease and outright "disturbedness" looking at this "alleged" scientific supply website.

Yet I can't stop. Not unlike this site itself. :eyes:
Jamal May 05, 2025 at 12:21 #986106
User image

Maybe I'll re-read this soon. I read it when it came out in the 90s but a lot of it went over my head. I'd forgotten about it until it occurred to me today that it must have been my introduction to Adorno. It's a mad book.

quizzical rictus
Shawn May 05, 2025 at 12:24 #986108
Reply to kazan

I am telling you that those pigs are more happy than any other being you can meet or see with your very own eyes. Truly.
Shawn May 05, 2025 at 12:24 #986109
I heard Banksy posts here.

Grin.
javi2541997 May 05, 2025 at 13:06 #986118
Any thoughts/opinions on this Cervantes statue?
It was erected in 1999.

User image
Hanover May 05, 2025 at 14:46 #986132
Quoting Jamal
I read it when it came out in the 90s but a lot of it went over my head.


I looked this book up, at first thinking it was an AI created cover, although the background looked legit, so I wasn't sure. One review said it really wasn't about Zappa, but it sort of used his music as a roadmap. What struck me was that it's 621 pages, which means it wasn't just a fleeing idea the author had, and you said you read it, as in the whole book, which shows an admiral committment.

When I was in I think the 6th grade I read Watership Down and I didn't know really know what the hell it was about and it spoke some rabbit language interspersed throughout. I got through it though, making it the longest book I ever read that I could brag to my friends about, but it was just words being recognized and going through my brain.

There is no bigger point to this conversation. Just an anecdote to share.
Jamal May 05, 2025 at 15:09 #986138
Reply to Hanover

I saw that review too. It’s wrong. Ben Watson is a massive fan of FZ with an encyclopedic knowledge of his oeuvre, and he got one of the last interviews with the man, which is contained in the book. The book analyzes the music in great detail and is totally centred on the work. It eccentrically applies negative dialectics and Marxism and puts Frank in the context of the history of Western art, but it’s definitely focused on him and his work. So yeah, that reviewer is a lying bastard.

I haven’t read the rabbit book but I was traumatized by the film.

Quoting Hanover
admiral committment


:cool:
Hanover May 05, 2025 at 15:43 #986146
Quoting javi2541997
Any thoughts/opinions on this Cervantes statue?


I read he only had 6 teeth when he died.
javi2541997 May 05, 2025 at 15:51 #986149
Reply to Hanover And he had only one hand. Cervantes was like a zombie, but fortunately, his brain worked very well.
Hanover May 05, 2025 at 15:57 #986150
Quoting javi2541997
And he had only one hand. Cervantes was like a zombie, but fortunately, his brain worked very well.


Do you know which hand he had? It's important to me because I'm super into hands, which you might have noticed from my prior postings, dealing largely with ancient emancipated slaves during the Big Band era.
javi2541997 May 05, 2025 at 16:16 #986151
Reply to Hanover Yes, I know hands are very important to you.

He had the right hand. He lost the other in the Battle of Lepanto.
Shawn May 05, 2025 at 16:44 #986153
Pig pig pig...
User image
Hanover May 05, 2025 at 17:27 #986159
Quoting javi2541997
He lost the other in the Battle of Lepanto.


Did it have a "5" on it? If it did, I think I know where it is.
Hanover May 05, 2025 at 17:32 #986160
Reply to Shawn Those pigs appear to be in a dungeon. Whatever did they do to earn that?

Shawn May 05, 2025 at 17:56 #986163
Reply to Hanover

It's a sad story. Our relationship with them, imposes such a condition. Call it the pig condition. But boy oh boy are they resilient to what we do to them.

:fear:
Shawn May 05, 2025 at 17:58 #986164
Feel free to do away with the cognitive dissonance due to sympathy with adoption of their presence, which is nothing but joy, in my opinion.
javi2541997 May 05, 2025 at 18:05 #986165
Quoting Hanover
Did it have a "5" on it? If it did, I think I know where it is.


¡Sí!

No way! Is there a chance that Cervantes' left hand ended up in Atlanta, GA? Probably, it was George Washington who left it there for plausible reasons.
Outlander May 05, 2025 at 18:06 #986166
Quoting Hanover
Those pigs appear to be in a dungeon. Whatever did they do to earn that?


While this may look like a porcine, and they might spill the beans and squeal, I don't think they'd have much interest unless you offer something that brings home the bacon! Ham sure of that. If you didn't know, well now the secret's snout. And I ain't just porking around!
Hanover May 05, 2025 at 20:36 #986178
Quoting javi2541997
No way! Is there a chance that Cervantes' left hand ended up in Atlanta, GA? Probably, it was George Washington who left it there for plausible reasons.


It's not in Atlanta. It's in in the Sea of Reeds (like right smack dab in the middle of it) in the 1920s, hovering to the right of Moses' forehead, misplaced in time, so make sure to rewind your watch or something so you get there after before during whenever you're supposed to.
Outlander May 05, 2025 at 20:37 #986179
@Jamal Trump's take on "Negative Dialectics" (watch the last 15 seconds, starting at 1:30 if you're not really a fan of the guy.)

[hide="Reveal"][tweet]https://www.twitter.com/acyn/status/1919453817592303945[/tweet][/hide]
Jamal May 05, 2025 at 20:50 #986181
Reply to Outlander

He does seem genuinely fascinated by those contradictory characteristics — horrible/beautiful and strong/weak. But I think that's just regular dialectics, not the negative variety, particularly because he seems to believe that embracing those fascinating contradictions will be productive or beneficial.
javi2541997 May 06, 2025 at 11:59 #986290
I don't know if I am the only one who does this, but I keep a list with the names of users who haven’t connected for a long time, and I miss them.

Why do I do this?

Well, you heard about the golden rule, right? Treat folks the same way you wish you would be treated.

@0 thru 9 -- last seen: 1 year ago. I truly miss him. He is a remarkable user; very funny and gentle. I remember having conversations with him about using cannabis for medical purposes. Good stuff.

@Cheshire -- His profile image is probably one of the best of TPF. But I miss him for other reasons. I guess he will come back when the brakes 'fall off', as he states in his bio. Cool fella.

@L'éléphant -- was he French or Canadian? Nice guy. We had deep conversations each other about aesthetics.

@Paul -- He was the admin of the old forum (which I never was a member of) and now is the co-owner of my planting.


Count Timothy von Icarus May 06, 2025 at 13:07 #986301
Interesting comment I saw that isn't worthy of its own thread:

In the commentary on the Metaphysics St. Thomas says: " However, the objects of mathematics neither are moved nor cause motion nor have a will. Hence in their case the good is not considered under the name of good and end, although in them we do consider what is good, namely, their being and what they are."

Basically, because mathematics about bulk quantity (magnitude and multitude, as opposed to the "virtual quantity" of intensity in quality) as abstracted from things' definitions. Hence, it doesn't include ends. Hence, it cannot include any notion of final causality and telos. Thus, the mathematization of science, the demand that all of being be reduced to mathematical physics itself contains the demand that the world be "valueless and meaningless" and devoid of good and intentionality.

Hence, the birth of the much maligned but oft-recreated "Cartesian dualism" and "Cartesian anxiety."
Metaphysician Undercover May 06, 2025 at 13:21 #986304
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Hence, it doesn't include ends.


That the end is excluded from the idea leaves the purpose of usage totally to the discretion of the user. So mathematical ideas are super versatile, tools designed without any specific purpose, but intended to fulfil an infinity of purposes. Like Plato said, good or evil is not a feature of power, it's a feature of the intent of the user.
Count Timothy von Icarus May 06, 2025 at 13:42 #986307
Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

So mathematical ideas are super versatile, tools designed without any specific purpose, but intended to fulfil an infinity of purposes.


Excellent point. And this goes right with the evolution of modern nominalist thought. Things are just math, and so things have whatever telos we give to them. Indeed, strictly speaking there aren't things at all, but our only our purposes for declaring some mathematical patterns to be "things"). This is how man's mind becomes the sui generis source of all meaning and value in some philosophies, or God's sheer will in others (with even man himself lacking any telos and nature, instead generating his own telos out of a sheer act of will). I think there is probably a relationship between the mathematization of being and the triumph of volanturism here. With all consideration of form and intrinsic telos excluded, the sheer will is all that is left to bestow purpose and meaning (first God's will, and later in history man's).

But, is this correct? Does a bee truly have no intrinsic telos? Man? Are there no such things as bees and ants but for the volanturist declarations of man, who slices up the world-as-mathematical-object based on utility? I tend to think not.

At any rate, radical nominalism certainly does seem to have a fetish for mathematization, and wants to reduce the emergence of "things" to "mathematical patterns," "regularities," "information," etc. But I think there will also be some bare remainder here, because mathematics cannot generate the purpose by which any "pattern" might be declared a thing or quality. Hence, the volanturist will is always lurking in the background of nominalism. There is a reason why, historically, nominalism and volanturism went together hand in glove. In post-modern thought, there is a turn against the individual as the seat of the volanturist will, but this isn't really a turn away from volanturism, so much as its globalization in a diffuse "ocean of will/intention."
frank May 06, 2025 at 16:47 #986330
In any scene full of people, you can note the ways people are trying to exert control: expressing anger, asking for pity. Even apologizing can be a tool for gaining good will and mercy.

How often do people actually mean what they're saying when they apologize?



T Clark May 06, 2025 at 19:37 #986343
Quoting frank
How often do people actually mean what they're saying when they apologize


Strikes me the whole apology/forgiveness thing is really just a way of avoiding responsibility. Don’t apologize, make it right.
frank May 06, 2025 at 19:38 #986344
Reply to T Clark Like with a gift card?
Hanover May 06, 2025 at 20:28 #986346
Is there a way to download the files here? I ask because I'd like to dump them into AI and have it do an evaluation of each of us, breaking us down into our worldview, our argumentation style, our value as people, things like that.

Hanover May 06, 2025 at 20:30 #986347
Quoting T Clark
Strikes me the whole apology/forgiveness thing is really just a way of avoiding responsibility. Don’t apologize, make it right.


I say just do whatever you want and then say "bygones" and get pissed if they can't let it go.
T Clark May 06, 2025 at 21:27 #986351
Quoting Hanover
I say just do whatever you want and then say "bygones" and get pissed if they can't let it go.


One of the true pleasures of the forum is knowing you will always be there to put things in perspective. It is an honor to philosophize with you.
T Clark May 06, 2025 at 21:32 #986352
Quoting frank
Like with a gift card?


To the extent possible reestablish status quo ante. That’s Latin for “gift card.”
frank May 06, 2025 at 22:00 #986357
Quoting T Clark
To the extent possible reestablish status quo ante. That’s Latin for “gift card.”


But if you killed someone, that's going to be kind of difficult.
T Clark May 06, 2025 at 22:40 #986359
Quoting frank
But if you killed someone, that's going to be kind of difficult.


It’s true, making things right is more difficult than apologizing or a gift card.
Shawn May 07, 2025 at 05:39 #986423
Reply to Hanover

Don't do a character assassination on us. JFK and MLK got done for such stuff.
Shawn May 07, 2025 at 05:44 #986424
User image

Pig?
Shawn May 07, 2025 at 07:37 #986429
Quoting Hanover
our value as people, things like that.


I feel like this needs elaboration. After the McCarthy era and the paranoic nature of the 50's, people thought, whoever they may be, that some Americans weren't in stature or character worthy of the American way of life.

There are old laws about character worthyness in the US which are professed to this day.
Hanover May 07, 2025 at 10:05 #986438
Reply to Shawn McCarthyism was just our rejection of communists, where we removed them from our society and hoarded them into philosophy forums where the last of them still carry on.
Shawn May 07, 2025 at 10:10 #986441
Reply to Hanover

Not to cherry pick; but, the list of offenders is quite long. We also have a great track record of this list being unbiased and completely incapable of being in error. Hell, we still won't apologize to Japan for bombing them twice with atomic bombs.
javi2541997 May 07, 2025 at 10:15 #986442
Reply to Hanover Reply to Shawn

It is only 12:15 PM here, so this means that you guys like to get up early. I guess it is 06:30 AM in the USA or so; probably it is even earlier in California.
Shawn May 07, 2025 at 10:40 #986446
Reply to javi2541997

In the meantime it's 3:40 AM.
javi2541997 May 07, 2025 at 11:46 #986452
Reply to Shawn Crazy! What do you want for breakfast? A big bowl of the best cereals ever?

User image
Shawn May 07, 2025 at 12:29 #986459
Reply to javi2541997

Looks delicious. I made some coffee.
User image
Hanover May 07, 2025 at 15:38 #986492
Quoting Shawn
Hell, we still won't apologize to Japan for bombing them twice with atomic bombs.


We might disagree as to what we think is owed the Japanese.

Tom Storm May 07, 2025 at 21:03 #986531
I’m on a tram to work. 7am. The obligatory untreated schizophrenic person is amongst the passengers muttering about Jesus.
Jamal May 07, 2025 at 21:15 #986534
Breakfast you say?

User image

I had to get this fancy expensive Sicilian marmalade from one of those fancy expensive shops that sell Italian things just so I can have marmalade, cos it's not a thing in Russia.

Still haven't found Marmite.

Noble Dust May 07, 2025 at 21:43 #986535
Reply to Jamal

That looks heavenly. I think bread is my favorite food. Is that homemade?
Jamal May 07, 2025 at 21:51 #986536
Reply to Noble Dust

I think I just picked it up in a nice wee bakery or supermarket.

I did make some bread at home for the first time the other day, but it was just flatbread because I had no raising agent. Flour, yoghurt, salt. Pretty good. It even puffed up and formed big bubbles when I fried it.

Bread is definitely up there with cheese, roast chicken, pringles and Vietnamese soup.
Shawn May 08, 2025 at 00:43 #986555
Just got the newest Intel 275HX paired with a RTX 5070 Ti laptop and OLED screen. Got to say, Lenovo never disappoints. Intel also did some crazy stuff by putting a desktop CPU into a laptop.

Think there isn't a better time to buy a futureproof laptop if anyone is wondering because of Neural Processing Units in the Nvidia latest 50 series and Intel's 275HX. HP has some wild deal for 2.6k USD you can get a high end 5080 RTX with Intel's 275HX, I haven't seen such a deal in my whole life for such specifications.
Hanover May 08, 2025 at 01:24 #986565
I went through a bread making phase a while ago and you guys are acting like it's a new thing, but I was way ahead of all of you chef wise.

I'm into lasagna and shit now. By the time y'all get to lasagna, I'll probably be at roast suckling pig or some such shit

And no, i didn't say "pig" to see if I could get a pig picture
Shawn May 08, 2025 at 01:30 #986566
Quoting Hanover
And no, i didn't say "pig" to see if I could get a pig picture


But here is one, she's a beauty:
User image
Hanover May 08, 2025 at 01:46 #986569
Reply to Shawn My floppy eared dog visits the neighbor's pigs every now and then. I'm going to see if my wife has a pig pic I can upload
Shawn May 08, 2025 at 01:48 #986570
Hanover May 08, 2025 at 01:51 #986571
User image
That's her sniffing the pigs.
Hanover May 08, 2025 at 01:54 #986573
We gave them the chickens because the foxes kept getting to ours. We're going to re-fortify our coop and get more.

User image
Shawn May 08, 2025 at 01:55 #986574
Reply to Hanover

Reply to Hanover

Are those Kune Kune pigs? They are so adorable. Happy to see pigs!
Hanover May 08, 2025 at 02:04 #986576
Quoting Shawn
Are those Kune Kune pigs?


I'm told yes.
T Clark May 08, 2025 at 03:48 #986588
Quoting Jamal
Bread is definitely up there with cheese, roast chicken, pringles and Vietnamese soup.


Pasta - I guess you could think of that as bread. And of course, Velveeta.
javi2541997 May 08, 2025 at 04:35 #986591
Reply to Jamal Well, that's what I take for breakfast every morning; but I use olive oil and tomato instead of marmalade.

But this is not the important thing in the picture of your kitchen. I believe nobody realised you have a beautiful dark bottle next to the white cup. I thought it was a bottle of olive oil, but I can't remember seeing anything close to it. I looked it up on Google Lens, and it claims it is liquor.

User image
Jamal May 08, 2025 at 05:12 #986593
Quoting T Clark
Pasta - I guess you could think of that as bread.


:chin:

Reply to javi2541997

Georgian wine, actually. The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast.
javi2541997 May 08, 2025 at 05:34 #986596
Reply to Jamal Georgian wine! Delicious! There is no better way to start the day! :yum:
Jamal May 08, 2025 at 05:43 #986597
Quoting javi2541997
I use olive oil and tomato instead of marmalade.


I'd go with white bread for that.
Jamal May 08, 2025 at 05:49 #986599
Quoting Hanover
I was way ahead of all of you chef wise.


Breadwise at least. Baking in general is a gaping hole in my arsenal.
javi2541997 May 08, 2025 at 05:58 #986600
Reply to Jamal I usually use white bread; but rye bread is also very good for breakfast. Oh, and crisp crackers are also nice. I think it is called "wheat crispbread." It goes very well with tomatoes, avocado, eggs, cheese, ham, etc.

User image
Jamal May 08, 2025 at 06:02 #986601
Reply to javi2541997

I sometimes use cardboard too.
javi2541997 May 08, 2025 at 06:27 #986604
Quoting Jamal
I sometimes use cardboard too.


:lol:

With Georgian wine or Andalusian olive oil?
Jamal May 08, 2025 at 06:29 #986605
Reply to javi2541997

The thing about cardboard is it doesn't have much taste itself, so you can pair it with anything.
javi2541997 May 08, 2025 at 07:03 #986606
Reply to Jamal Cardboard and Russian (Vologda) butter. Yummy! :yum:
Outlander May 08, 2025 at 09:38 #986613
Reply to Hanover

Gosh that's a lovely stump. Shame to think of what used to be there, especially in tandem with the careless whim of whomever created it from what it once was.

Say, you ever wonder if little forest elves and other assorted mystical creatures have little meetings on it at night, utilizing it as a table for sharing and discussing plans on how to govern the mortal world?
Jamal May 08, 2025 at 09:51 #986614
Reply to javi2541997

So that's where the good butter comes from? I didn't know; thanks. I don't always make the effort to read the labels, especially when they use the medieval fonts:

User image

Actually it's not that hard to read. I'm lazy.

EDIT: It says "butter creamy peasant from Vologda"
Jamal May 08, 2025 at 10:06 #986615
Quoting Outlander
Say, you ever wonder if little forest elves and other assorted mystical creatures have little meetings on it at night, utilizing it as a table for sharing and discussing plans on how to govern the mortal world?


I've always assumed that the secret of pixie and fairy happiness is that they don't have any such ambitions.
Hanover May 08, 2025 at 10:13 #986616
So, I caught a glimpse of an elusive pixie this morning and snapped a picture quickly before she left.

User image

Turns out they are adorable. Classy too.
Metaphysician Undercover May 08, 2025 at 11:11 #986622
Quoting Hanover
I went through a bread making phase a while ago and you guys are acting like it's a new thing, but I was way ahead of all of you chef wise.

I'm into lasagna and shit now. By the time y'all get to lasagna, I'll probably be at roast suckling pig or some such shit


A great name for a great philosopher such as yourself, "Chef Wise". Have you tried spaghetti yet Chef Wise?
Outlander May 08, 2025 at 11:33 #986625
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
A great name for a great philosopher such as yourself, "Chef Wise". Have you tried spaghetti yet Chef Wise?


It's an American/English terminology/coinage/manner of speaking.

The preceding "-wise" affix(i?)ation denotes context. Generally used when a lone word may result in ambiguity or possibly substantially different meaning.

"This meal is pretty good, cost-wise." (meaning the cost being good is what is being referred to, more so than the traditional qualities one may associate when hearing one compliment a meal ie. taste, amount, etc.)

It's an amazing day today having to inform you of something. Your posts usually inform me of things! :smile:

Unless you're being sarcastic or pleasantly nonchalant. Which is equally nice and unexpected.
frank May 08, 2025 at 22:33 #986693
Alexander the Great was gay
Shawn May 08, 2025 at 23:25 #986704
A pig squealed.
Shawn May 08, 2025 at 23:29 #986705
User image
Hanover May 08, 2025 at 23:31 #986706
Quoting Outlander
The preceding "-wise" affix(i?)ation denotes context. Generally used when a lone word may result in ambiguity or possibly substantially different meaning.

"This meal is pretty good, cost-wise." (meaning the cost being good is what is being referred to, more so than the traditional qualities one may associate when hearing one compliment a meal ie. taste, amount, etc.)


Compare though to "streetwise," which would indicate wisdom from the streets as opposed to being related to the street.
Shawn May 08, 2025 at 23:34 #986709
Reply to Hanover

Congratulations on the luck you attained in life searching for a beautiful woman to share your life with.
Hanover May 08, 2025 at 23:40 #986711
Quoting Shawn
Congratulations on the luck you attained in life searching for a beautiful woman to share your life with.


Thanks, but truth be told, she's the lucky one. I'm quite the catch.
Metaphysician Undercover May 09, 2025 at 00:35 #986716
Quoting Outlander
The preceding "-wise" affix(i?)ation denotes context.


Yeah but, it was used as two distinct words. Maybe spellcheck at play?

Quoting Outlander
It's an amazing day today having to inform you of something. Your posts usually inform me of things! :smile:

Unless you're being sarcastic or pleasantly nonchalant. Which is equally nice and unexpected.


I'm just being unexpected, hopefully in a nice way.

Quoting Shawn
Congratulations on the luck you attained in life searching for a beautiful woman to share your life with.


I'd say Chef Wise is well experienced beautiful womanwise.
Shawn May 09, 2025 at 03:53 #986736
Regarding kune kune pigs, here is one:
User image
javi2541997 May 09, 2025 at 04:43 #986743
Reply to Shawn That's a very good-looking pig. Probably, it is the most handsome pig you shared in The Shoutbox until now.
Shawn May 09, 2025 at 05:17 #986748
Reply to javi2541997

Yes, the pig is extremely healthy looking. Health is wealth, so imagine how rich he or she is.
Metaphysician Undercover May 09, 2025 at 12:04 #986799
Reply to Shawn
Yes, instead of referring to money as "dough" or "bread", we should use "bacon".
Gotta go... I'm in charge of bringing home the bacon.
Shawn May 09, 2025 at 12:54 #986815
Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

Do feel sorry for the pig. Bacon was a guy who was pretty smart.
javi2541997 May 09, 2025 at 13:03 #986817
I just finished my dish of smoked trout. I ate it with mayonnaise because I didn't have Tartar sauce in my fridge. A terrible mistake, but these things happen more than you believe; the fact that you forget what you must buy in the supermarket.

Anyway, I wanted to know more about trouts, how they live and tricks for cooking it. According to Wikipedia 'the texture is often indistinguishable from that of salmon'

I fully disagree! Trouts and salmons are clearly distinguishable as food. The texture is different, but trouts are also more bony and hard. The smell is unequal too. It is a good point to consider that both fish are colourful and pretty. A trout and a salmon may be indistinguishable in a photograph or painting, but when they end up in your mouth... Clearly distinguishable.

User image
Jamal May 09, 2025 at 13:10 #986819
Reply to javi2541997

I'm a trout man. I eat it literally whenever possible. I'd be eating it right now if I wasn't stuffing my face with Vologda butter.

I used to catch trout in the river next to the French water mill where I lived between 2012 and 2015. Often I'd keep them, take them inside and cook them for breakfast.

I much prefer it to salmon, but I'm not sure why. Maybe because it tastes better and is superior in all ways to salmon.

The Russian trout grow as big as salmon.

Today for breakfast I had demolished potatoes fried in butter to produce patchy crispy brownnesses, with homefried egg of chicken and a good slice of good ham (thanks and apologies to the pigs). In my world this breakfast happens very rarely, but it's one of the best.
javi2541997 May 09, 2025 at 13:28 #986824
Reply to Jamal It is unbelievable that Dia* is the only supermarket where I can buy trout. I think the rest of the supermarkets don't sell it for inexplicable reasons. I am starting to become a real fan of trout, but I believe I will not get the same level as yours because I don't live in Russia, a place where there are a lot of fish and interesting big stuff.

Yes, I am happy that I am not the only one who thinks that Russian trout can be better than Norwegian salmon.

*Update: I read on the Internet that Dia supermarkets are owned by a Russian businessman. I now understand why there are trouts on the shelves!
Jamal May 09, 2025 at 13:43 #986829
Quoting javi2541997
I read on the Internet that Dia supermarkets are owned by a Russian businessman. I now understand why there are trouts on the shelves!


Ha! But wait: you picked up on a passing mention of Russia but I also mentioned France, where I ate more trout than I do now. I also used to get trout in Mercadona in Dénia, believe it or not.
javi2541997 May 09, 2025 at 14:43 #986841
Quoting Jamal
I also used to get trout in Mercadona in Dénia, believe it or not.


I believe it. Mercadona in the Valencian Community has more specialities and products. When I went to Mercadona in Guardamar, I felt that there were many different things than in Madrid. Horchata and sweets are good examples; I think they have them all year, but here they appear intermittently.
frank May 09, 2025 at 14:44 #986842
Quoting Hanover
I'm quite the catch.


like a virus?
Shawn May 09, 2025 at 15:39 #986853
https://youtube.com/shorts/bCA9fsipVMM



Hanover May 09, 2025 at 17:14 #986864
My grandfather once took me to Rainbow Ranch, a rainbow trout pond where you paid for what caught by the pound. I was easily one of the greatest fisherman ever. They expanded Hwy 20 and closed the pond, eliminating the trout joy for all future generations though. Now we just eat the bait, either red wigglers or corn nibblets.

I would go on to trout fish in Colorado many years later. Although he never said it, my guide recognized my skills developed in my youth.
T Clark May 09, 2025 at 18:26 #986871
Quoting frank
Alexander the Great was gay


Speaking of which, has everyone seen “The Man Who Would Be King?” With Sean Connery and Michael Caine. Great movie.
fdrake May 09, 2025 at 19:01 #986873
Been having curried sardines of late. Not bad.
Moliere May 09, 2025 at 19:29 #986876
Douglas Adams:
The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.

Unfortunately this Electric Monk had developed a fault, and had started to believe all kinds of things, more or less at random. It was even beginning to believe things they’d have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City. It had never heard of Salt Lake City, of course. Nor had it ever heard of a quingigillion, which was roughly the number of miles between this valley and the Great Salt Lake of Utah.


Reminds me of the various obsessions with AI.

Reply to fdrake From a can, or...?
Shawn May 09, 2025 at 22:20 #986903
Quoting fdrake
Been having curried sardines of late. Not bad.


Sardines are good. I really like the Russian brand found at delicatessens.
fdrake May 09, 2025 at 22:47 #986905
Quoting Moliere
?fdrake From a can, or...?


From a can. They come covered in a tomato paste, so I turn that into curry sauce and then hot plate them.

Quoting Shawn
I really like the Russian brand found at delicatessens.


Not tried them.
T Clark May 09, 2025 at 23:50 #986917
Anti-pragmatism - finding an obscure or trivial situation in which an otherwise useful and effective principle falls short and using that to invalidate the principle. Example - using Russell‘s paradox to question the validity of mathematics as a whole. Another example - using Hume’s induction paradox to question the validity of inductive reasoning.
Moliere May 10, 2025 at 00:00 #986918
Quoting fdrake
From a can. They come covered in a tomato paste, so I turn that into curry sauce and then hot plate them.


Noice!


Reply to T Clark

Suppose Kant's favorite maxim "Do not lie"

Would the axe-murderer scenario count as an obscure or trivial situation?
Outlander May 10, 2025 at 01:06 #986923
Quoting T Clark
Anti-pragmatism - finding an obscure or trivial situation in which an otherwise useful and effective principle falls short and using that to invalidate the principle. Example - using Russell‘s paradox to question the validity of mathematics as a whole. Another example - using Hume’s induction paradox to question the validity of inductive reasoning.


I would imagine some would believe that informing others of a higher truth is really the main focus and intent of some actions, the "[invalidation of] the principle" being more of an unintended side effect. One that those who swore by said principle can't or won't ever seem to see past, sure.

False hope may have its utility, but in my view, we owe ourselves just a tad better. Still, "let sleeping dogs lie" coupled with "don't fix what ain't broke" has in fact prevented many an unneeded hardship. Who's to say, really.
T Clark May 10, 2025 at 01:28 #986926
Quoting Moliere
Would the axe-murderer scenario count as an obscure or trivial situation?


Neither. I don’t think Kant would consider the example as undermining the validity of the categorical imperative, as much as we might.
T Clark May 10, 2025 at 01:29 #986927
Quoting Outlander
I would imagine some would believe that informing others of a higher truth is really the main focus and intent of some actions, the "[invalidation of] the principle" being more of an unintended side effect.


I guess I don’t consider undermining a principle based on a trivial circumstance as a higher truth.
Moliere May 10, 2025 at 01:41 #986930
Quoting T Clark
Neither. I don’t think Kant would consider the example as undermining the validity of the categorical imperative, as much as we might.


I agree that Kant doesn't consider the example as undermining the CI, or even his favorite maxim, given he's defended the idea you ought tell the truth to the axe murderer in writing.

I thought of it because

Quoting T Clark
Anti-pragmatism - finding an obscure or trivial situation in which an otherwise useful and effective principle falls short and using that to invalidate the principle. Example - using Russell‘s paradox to question the validity of mathematics as a whole. Another example - using Hume’s induction paradox to question the validity of inductive reasoning.


Kant would think that the axe murderer is the obscure or trivial situation, to my eyes.
T Clark May 10, 2025 at 01:51 #986932
Quoting Moliere
Kant would think that the axe murderer is the obscure or trivial situation, to my eyes.


Maybe, but if I were he, I wouldn’t think so. Not that I have any insight into how he really thought or to his philosophy as a whole.
T Clark May 10, 2025 at 01:56 #986933
Quoting Outlander
I would imagine some would believe that informing others of a higher truth is really the main focus and intent of some actions, the "[invalidation of] the principle" being more of an unintended side effect.


I thought about this some more after my previous response to you. I think there is a higher truth to learn here, it’s that all human philosophy, all human thought, is contingent and probabilistic and expecting it to be otherwise is unrealistic.
Moliere May 10, 2025 at 01:57 #986935
T Clark May 10, 2025 at 02:01 #986939
Quoting Moliere
You ever read On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns ?


No, I haven’t. I’ll take a look. I went to the link, pushed a button, and automatically sent it off to my Kindle. Ain’t modern life wonderful.
Moliere May 10, 2025 at 02:02 #986940
Shawn May 10, 2025 at 03:09 #986948
"Archipelago" is my new favorite word.
Shawn May 10, 2025 at 03:48 #986949
Wild things are happening lately in the world or outside of it. Don't ask me anything, the mentalism that is required to situate yourself in this, is quite extreme.

I'm happy about pigs though.
kazan May 10, 2025 at 04:22 #986952
Quoting Shawn
Archipelago" is my new favorite word.


Isn't Javi the modern Russian Literature reader?
Sorry to ask having now read your subsequent comment.

gulaganous smile
Hanover May 10, 2025 at 06:15 #986963
Quoting T Clark
I guess I don’t consider undermining a principle based on a trivial circumstance as a higher truth.


It's the discovery of a variable. If the earth revolves in a predictable pattern except in one strange moment, you'd want to know why if highest truth is your goal.

That there are so many countless variables that your pattern is too complex to ever be fully known could reasonably lead you to ignore those aberrations and just rely upon what usually is the case. That is pragmatism.

It's also a reasonable position to argue pragmatism is the higher truth, in that we should rely upon what we can use as opposed to being paralyzed with uncertainty.

From this analysis of trivial variation in complex systems, maybe we learn the higher truth that higher truth is gained by ignoring them.

Jamal May 10, 2025 at 06:17 #986964
I prefer canned mackerel.
T Clark May 10, 2025 at 06:28 #986965
Quoting kazan
Isn't Javi the modern Russian Literature reader?


Archipelago is an Italian word, not Russian.
Jamal May 10, 2025 at 06:31 #986966
Reply to T Clark

Is it though?
Hanover May 10, 2025 at 06:33 #986967
Tinned fish is a delicacy these days. Previously I associated it with low quality, the thing of convenience stores or tuna for sandwiches.

I'm not fully ready for this transition. Give me a minute.

Hanover May 10, 2025 at 06:34 #986968
"The word archipelago is derived from the Italian arcipelago, used as a proper name for the Aegean Sea, itself perhaps a deformation of the Greek ??????? ???????.[2][3] Later, usage shifted to refer to the Aegean Islands (since the sea has a large number of islands). The erudite paretymology, deriving the word from Ancient Greek ????-(arkhi-, "chief") and ??????? (pélagos, "sea"), proposed by Buondelmonti, can still be found.[4]"
Jamal May 10, 2025 at 06:36 #986969
Reply to Hanover

I experienced the same thing with canned meat. When I went to France I discovered duck confit and other unctuous delights, which are definitely not cheap and low quality.
Hanover May 10, 2025 at 06:45 #986973
Reply to Jamal I would think a basket of canned meats and fishes, with assorted grainy crackers and perhaps spreads would make for a fine gift, maybe a thoughtful response for someone having watered you plants and tended your cat while you were away.

It would tell your kind neighbor you both appreciated her and thought her of a sophistication worthy of such treats.

It so beats a fruit basket I'd say.
kazan May 10, 2025 at 06:47 #986974
Quoting T Clark
Archipelago is an Italian word, not Russian


Reference was to the Gulag Archipelago as brought to the attention of the literary west by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Apologies for being too obtuse...other brain thinking can be fun in the S/box.

cheery smile
Shawn May 10, 2025 at 06:56 #986975
Reply to Hanover
Amazing.
Reply to kazan
Now that was intense!
javi2541997 May 10, 2025 at 07:18 #986979
Quoting kazan
Isn't Javi the modern Russian Literature reader?


I am trying to be, but other Eastern European writers (Mircea C?rt?rescu or Miklós Bánffy) popped up in my life, and they are worth reading too.

Quoting Shawn
"Archipelago" is my new favorite word.


Melancolía is always my favourite word.
javi2541997 May 10, 2025 at 07:21 #986981
Nostalgia is also a beautiful word.

Nostalgia: a feeling of pleasure and also slight sadness when you think about things that happened in the past.

The word nostalgia is a neoclassical compound derived from Greek, consisting of ?????? (nóstos), a Homeric word meaning "homecoming", and ????? (álgos), meaning "pain."

Milan Kundera:The purpose of the poetry is not to dazzle with an astonishing thought, but to make one moment of existence unforgettable and worthy of unbearable nostalgia.
Hanover May 10, 2025 at 10:45 #986993
My favorite word is "set," which holds the record as the word with the most meanings at 430.

My favorite usage is usage: II.6.c.1775–

" A right to sit as a member, or the position of being a member, of a deliberative or administrative body, esp. of Parliament or other legislative assembly; a place (whether occupied or temporarily vacant) in the membership of the House of Commons, Congress, or the like.

Sometimes qualified by the designation of that one of the contending parties to which the holder of the (Parliamentary) seat belongs: e.g. ‘The polls for three Liberal and three Conservative seats will be declared to-morrow’.

https://www.oed.com/dictionary/seat_n?tab=meaning_and_use#23944574https://www.oed.com/dictionary/seat_n?tab=meaning_and_use#23944574




Outlander May 10, 2025 at 13:52 #987008
Reply to Jamal

User image

Just think, it can be yours yet again for the low, low price of just $68.50 :eyes:

I'm tempted, based on your praise, which I assume to be infrequent in nature and relatively difficult to obtain. Not sure why, but I like to think so. Unfortunately, this month has been dismally wasteful and unproductive, concepts that walk hand in hand and seem to be ever-pervasive in society time and time again. So, I'll have to pass myself. For now.

Quoting Hanover
which holds the record as the word with the most meanings at 430.


Oh come now. Most of those meanings are just short of exactly identical. The page linked is a lesson in tolerance for obnoxious levels of specificity and context. They have a separate definition for the same concept of a "seat" (government position) for specific named bodies of government, despite the meaning never changing ie. "Random country no one's ever heard of 519" gets a separate and seemingly unique definition from Country 518. That's padding the numbers and superfluousness in my book.
T Clark May 10, 2025 at 16:11 #987017
Quoting Hanover
It's the discovery of a variable. If the earth revolves in a predictable pattern except in one strange moment, you'd want to know why if highest truth is your goal.


Sure, but that's a matter of fact, not logic. There's no contradiction, just insufficient knowledge. In the case of Russell's paradox, for example, it's not an empirical question. At least one philosopher (Wittgenstein? Turing?) speculated bridges might fall down.

Quoting Hanover
That there are so many countless variables that your pattern is too complex to ever be fully known could reasonably lead you to ignore those aberrations and just rely upon what usually is the case. That is pragmatism.


There's more to it than that, but ok.

Quoting Hanover
It's also a reasonable position to argue pragmatism is the higher truth, in that we should rely upon what we can use as opposed to being paralyzed with uncertainty.

From this analysis of trivial variation in complex systems, maybe we learn the higher truth that higher truth is gained by ignoring them.


I think that's close to the same thing I meant when I wrote this in a previous response.

Quoting T Clark
I think there is a higher truth to learn here, it’s that all human philosophy, all human thought, is contingent and probabilistic and expecting it to be otherwise is unrealistic.
Jamal May 10, 2025 at 16:23 #987020
Quoting Outlander
Just think, it can be yours yet again for the low, low price of just $68.50


Four legs in a can, €19.90:

User image
Hanover May 10, 2025 at 16:30 #987022
Quoting Outlander
Oh come now. Most of those meanings are just short of exactly identical

Each one is a snowflake, unique in its own special way.
Hanover May 10, 2025 at 16:37 #987023
I found this, canned cow. It's good to keep one in the pantry if in a pinch.User image
Jamal May 10, 2025 at 16:39 #987024
Quoting Outlander
Oh come now. Most of those meanings are just short of exactly identical.


This is a common reaction, but you should question it, since it calls into question the whole practice of descriptive lexicography.
T Clark May 10, 2025 at 20:52 #987043
Quoting Jamal
This is a common reaction, but you should question it, since it calls into question the whole practice of descriptive lexicography.


If it weren’t for nitpicky distinctions, this forum would not exist.
Outlander May 10, 2025 at 21:00 #987045
Quoting T Clark
If it weren’t for nitpicky distinctions, this forum would not exist.


Neither would have the Bronze Age, let alone our current one. :chin:
T Clark May 11, 2025 at 01:29 #987069
These are some of my favorite phrases and figures of speech. I picked up many from my family as a child, although they might not be original with them.

  • Up the wooden hill - Time to go to bed. This from my father, although I know it is not original with him.
  • Get a hunch, bet a bunch - My father used this to annoy and disconcert his opponents when he played poker.
  • You're a pimple on the ass of progress - Also from my father. He used it when I annoyed him.
  • Knock yourself out - From my brother. Again, not original with him. A sarcastic exhortation to do what you want no matter how inadvisable.
  • And that's the name of that tune. One of the catchphrases of the main character of a television show from the 1970s - Baretta.
  • Nuff said. Spiderman.
  • D'oh. Homer.
  • I know you are, but what am I. Pee Wee Herman.

jorndoe May 11, 2025 at 02:05 #987076
:D gave me a chuckle

My Favorite Things about Project 2025 - Sound of Music Parody Song (Shirley ?erban · Sep 26, 2024 · 2m:50s)


Hanover May 11, 2025 at 15:15 #987114
I found an old copy of Slaughterhouse Five I started reading. I wonder if the point of Western intellectual tradition, particularly literature, is to disabuse of us naive optimistic mythology. Reminds me of Candide I think but need to reread.

I can't see it's value pragmatically though, which is my overriding bias. Should the rosy lens be cleansed to view precisely, will that do anything to change tomorrow? History shows that knowledge of history does nothing to keep it from repeating.

Do i want pensive minds filled with moral nuance and and the weight of past suffering who've been stripped of the faith that theirs is the cause of the holy to assure God's plan goes unimpeded to be charged with storming the next Normandy?

Recognizing utopia can't be had is obvious, so why wallow in the sadness it can't be had? If fidelity to truth is your wedding vow, at least contemplate your purpose for that truth before just assuming it can't be used to demotivate and destroy whatever chance at improvement you lament is not occurring.


Jamal May 11, 2025 at 15:54 #987116
Reply to Hanover

Art and philosophy: bad for army morale and bad for business!

All art is quite useless, Oscar said. Like many of the best things in life. Like life itself.

Who the hell wants to read propaganda for fun?
T Clark May 11, 2025 at 17:12 #987123
Quoting Hanover
I found an old copy of Slaughterhouse Five I started reading. I wonder if the point of Western intellectual tradition, particularly literature, is to disabuse of us naive optimistic mythology.


Collingwood talks about what we call “art” in terms of three functions - craft, entertainment, and expression of personal experience. Such self-expression comes with the expectation, or at least the possibility, the audience will share in that experience. I guess we could probably add education and exhortation to that list, especially for literature defined broadly. For Collingwood, only art as self-expression is truly art. I like this way of looking at things, if only because it gives me the opportunity to act all erudite and stuff.

And that is my lecture for today.
Jamal May 11, 2025 at 17:25 #987125
Quoting T Clark
For Collingwood, only art as self-expression is truly art. I like this way of looking at things, if only because it gives me the opportunity to act all erudite and stuff.


Would it be temeritous of me to delve into your mind and diagnose you as suffering from a deep mental rift, a self divided by, on the one hand, the need to philosophize, and on the other hand, the eminently pragmatic American engineer's anti-intellectualism that compels you to disavow your own philosophizing? If so, I take it back.
Hanover May 11, 2025 at 17:27 #987127
Reply to Jamal So I was saying artists' and philosophers' observations about humanity would lead to greater inhumanity if accepted by greater humanity, but then you say that rejecting their observations would lead to greater dissatisfaction among artists and philosophers (i.e. it'd be no fun), so they should be accepted.

That has a nice self-awareness of uselessness, revealing my error that my objection is only valid if I mattered, but it even injects a certain amount of self importance back into it, as in, since my importance isn't global, but pretty isolated to just having fun I should at least entertain myself. I matter enough that my self enjoyment is of value. As in, get real, I'm not storming any Normandys and no Normandy is going unstormed because of some hippy era book, so stop the horseshit and moralize along with the author about the tragedy of war.

I can go with this. It explains why God left that book for me to read. Every blade of grass is there for a reason. I have to make everything comport to my radical optimism theory. Why? Same reason you don't. Self entertainment.
Jamal May 11, 2025 at 17:29 #987129
T Clark May 11, 2025 at 18:07 #987132
Quoting Jamal
Would it be temeritous of me…


I don’t know what “temeritous” means and I refuse to look it up. if you’re trying to make yourself seem more erudite and stuff than me, you’ll need to do better than that.
T Clark May 11, 2025 at 18:11 #987133
Reply to Jamal
Erudite-and-Stuff ®
Jamal May 11, 2025 at 18:18 #987134
Reply to T Clark

A temeritous is a gopher-like creature native to the meadows of the Andean foothills.
Jamal May 11, 2025 at 18:29 #987135
Turns out the word for one who displays temerity is "temerarious".

In searching for that I found out that temerity doesn't mean what I thought it meant. I thought it meant insolent, impertinent, cheeky. There's an overlap, but temerity is apparently more about recklessness. Who knew?

Thoughts?
T Clark May 11, 2025 at 18:56 #987136
Quoting Jamal
Thoughts?


How about “Erudite’n’Stuff®”? Better?
Jamal May 11, 2025 at 19:04 #987137
Reply to T Clark

How about Erudite-R-Us, Eruditia, Erudite-as-fuck, T-Erudite-Clark-n-stuff?
Hanover May 11, 2025 at 19:11 #987138
Quoting Jamal
Thoughts?


I ran it through ChatGpt as I suspected you wanted it analyzed:

ME: i want you to pass "temerity" through the following languages and then back to English to see how it mutated.

German, Hindi, Irish Gaelic, French, Croation, Georgian, Hebrew, Haitian Creole, Swahili, Yiddish, Cherokee, an African click langauge, southern Appalachian dialect English, Scottish (as spoken by a guy in Russia due to marriage), then back to American standard English (like normal people speak)


ChatGPT said:
Absolutely. Buckle up — this is going to be a linguistic rollercoaster. I’ll pass “temerity” through each of your requested languages in sequence, doing the best approximation at each stage (especially where exact equivalence or language access may be limited — looking at you, African click language and Russian-Scottish-English hybrid). Then I’ll translate it back into Standard American English to see what we’re left with.

1. English (starting point)
Temerity – reckless boldness; audacious confidence

2. German
Tollkühnheit – foolhardiness; daredevil behavior

3. Hindi
??????? ??? ???? (moorkhta bhara saahas) – foolish courage

4. Irish Gaelic
Meargántacht – recklessness; rashness

5. French
Imprudence audacieuse – audacious imprudence

6. Croatian
Hrabrost bez razmišljanja – bravery without thinking

7. Georgian
???????????? ???????? (guldadebeli simamate) – careless bravery

8. Hebrew
???? ???? (ometz paziz) – rash courage

9. Haitian Creole
Kouraj san reflechi – courage without thinking

10. Swahili
Ujasiri wa kipumbavu – foolish bravery

11. Yiddish
????????????? ??? ?? ?????? ??????? (temerity mit a narish meynung) – temerity with a foolish opinion

12. Cherokee (Approximate, via paraphrase)
?? ????? ??????? (ale adasgv’i udalolisdodi) – and he ran forward without care

13. An African click language (We'll improvise with a hypothetical rendering)
!Khoé-n!án tsîá-sî – “run-loud into the fire” (rough gloss for reckless bold advance)

14. Southern Appalachian dialect English
“He done gone run hisself right into trouble with no mind on nothin' but his own fool pride.”

15. Scottish (as spoken by a guy in Russia due to marriage)
“He's pure daft, but aye, he jist legged it in wi' nae plan, hopin’ tae be the hero, like some cowboy in Siberia.”

16. Back to Standard American English
"He boldly rushed in without thinking, full of pride and foolish courage, hoping to be a hero but clearly not using his head."

So after its long linguistic pilgrimage, temerity has mutated into something much more narrative, rural, and tragicomic — like a reckless man charging into a situation hoping for glory but courting disaster.

Thoughts?






T Clark May 11, 2025 at 19:11 #987139
Reply to Jamal
I thought about Erudite?Us®, but I like Erudite and Stuff® better. I've decided I won't use Erudite’n’Stuff®. Not dignified enough.
Jamal May 11, 2025 at 19:17 #987140
Quoting Hanover
Thoughts?


Disturbingly amusing and clever. I chuckled twice.
Hanover May 11, 2025 at 19:24 #987141
Reply to Jamal And that encourages me to continue.

For my next piece, I requested it draw me a picture that captures the essence of my last question related to temerity, but I suggested the subject used, for obvious reasons, be a Swedish volleyball player. User image
Jamal May 11, 2025 at 19:34 #987142
Reply to Hanover

Its hands are improving
Hanover May 11, 2025 at 19:35 #987143
Reply to Jamal Still with the 5 though.
Jamal May 11, 2025 at 19:53 #987147
Reply to Hanover

It knows what you like
Hanover May 11, 2025 at 23:39 #987177
Quoting T Clark
For Collingwood, only art as self-expression is truly art.
But art also might reveal a higher truth, which isn't mentioned in your erudition. I find that the value of better theater, the type not strung together by song and dance. Occasionally they make movies that way when they're not just regurgitating comic book hero themes.

One objection I have to fiction is when there's no point to it, but just a curious tale. I can blather crazy bullshit all day long, so I don't need someone else's nonsense. Extreme absurdity, that's good as well, but that just speaks to my being impressed at herculean ADHD random connections disconnections.

But back to my first paragraph, that came before I meandered. How do you respond?

BTW, I had a whole routine about Chris Collingsworth, the former Bengal wide receiver turned announced I was going to confuse for Collingwood, but I choose to forego. Just so much mental bouncing for one day.
frank May 11, 2025 at 23:47 #987179
These are the original ingredients of Coca Cola. The first part is a syrup, and the second part is favoring potion.

Quoting wikipedia
1 oz (28 g) caffeine citrate
3 oz (85 g) citric acid
1 US fl oz (30 ml) vanilla extract
1 US qt (946 ml) lime juice
2.5 oz (71 g) "flavoring" (i.e., "Merchandise 7X")
30 lb (14 kg) sugar
4 US fl oz (118.3 ml) fluid extract of coca leaves (flavor essence of the coca leaf)
2.5 US gal (9.5 L; 2.1 imp gal) water
caramel sufficient to give color
"Mix caffeine, citric acid and lime juice in 1 quart boiling water add vanilla and flavoring when cool."
Flavoring (Merchandise 7X):

1 qrt alcohol
80 oil orange
40 oil cinnamon
120 oil lemon
20 oil coriander
40 oil nutmeg
40 oil neroli
"Let stand 24 hours."
Hanover May 12, 2025 at 00:04 #987183
Reply to frank What does 80 oil orange even mean? Seems to be missing a unit, and wouldn't orange oil be a cleaning solution?

I think this Coca-Cola is going to taste like shit, and I'm going to wish I just bought a bottle like a normal person.

And I've got to think that 30 pounds of sugar in 2.5 gallons of water makes a clump of rock crystal.
frank May 12, 2025 at 00:21 #987185
Reply to Hanover
Did you know you can't drink coca cola at Passover?
T Clark May 12, 2025 at 00:28 #987186
Quoting frank
Did you know you can't drink coca cola at Passover?


There is kosher for Passover Coke.
frank May 12, 2025 at 00:41 #987192
Reply to T Clark
Where do you get it?
T Clark May 12, 2025 at 00:49 #987193
Quoting Hanover
But art also might reveal a higher truth, which isn't mentioned in your erudition. I find that the value of better theater, the type not strung together by song and dance. Occasionally they make movies that way when they're not just regurgitating comic book hero themes.


You have a different understanding of what art is than Collingwood does. I’m sympathetic to Collingwood’s way of seeing things. It’s not clear to me that the idea of a higher truth is a useful one. It’s also not entirely clear to me that the idea of art is a useful one.

Quoting Hanover
One objection I have to fiction is when there's no point to it, but just a curious tale. I can blather crazy bullshit all day long, so I don't need someone else's nonsense.


As I noted, Collingwood would not consider “just a curious tale” as art. I do like fiction, including just curious tales, but I also like fiction with more substance. Science fiction, but I also “Llike heart of Darkness.” I find science fiction, entertaining, while I find “Heart of Darkness,” deeply moving.

Quoting Hanover
Extreme absurdity, that's good as well, but that just speaks to my being impressed at herculean ADHD random connections disconnections.


Might I recommend “Infinite Jest.”

Quoting Hanover
I had a whole routine about Chris Collingsworth


It would have been wasted on me. I don’t know who he is.


T Clark May 12, 2025 at 00:51 #987194
Quoting frank
Where do you get it?


I would assume it is available at grocery stores in communities with large Jewish populations. I have been told that one difference between the two types of Coke Is that kosher for Passover Coke uses cane sugar rather than corn syrup.
Hanover May 12, 2025 at 00:58 #987196
Quoting T Clark
There is kosher for Passover Coke.


Yep,, with the yellow cap.

Ashkenazi include corn as prohibited grains, so no high fructose corn syrup, just pure cane sugar.
Hanover May 12, 2025 at 01:26 #987198
Quoting T Clark
It’s also not entirely clear to me that the idea of art is a useful one.



My view is all communication is art, representations of reality, some better, some worse, some least literal, least photographic offering truth most clearly.

And truth needn't be intellectual or infused with wisdom, but could be reflective of an inner experience, a recollection or emotion.

This stands against the concept of art is something only of museums.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dewey-aesthetics/#Expr
T Clark May 12, 2025 at 01:48 #987200
Quoting Hanover
My view is all communication is art, representations of reality, some better, some worse, some least literal, least photographic offering truth most clearly.


If all communication is art, I can’t see why we need another word for it. This seems connected to my idea that the idea of art is not a useful one.

Quoting Hanover
And truth needn't be intellectual or infused with wisdom, but could be reflective of an inner experience, a recollection or emotion.

This stands against the concept of art is something only of museums.


Collingwood certainly does not believe what he thinks of as art is only found in museums. He considers some literature and drama as art as well as visual arts and music. I agree with that.
Hanover May 12, 2025 at 03:24 #987208
My dog just told me it was raining by coming in and being wet. That's a form of non-linguistic non-artistic communication.

I told her she was a good weatherdog. She said "No problem Doc." Adorbs how she calls me that.
Outlander May 12, 2025 at 04:03 #987211
Quoting Hanover
My dog just told me it was raining by coming in and being wet. That's a form of non-linguistic non-artistic communication.


Did it really "[tell you]", though? Which I believe requires some sort of conscious intent on part of the bearer. Or did you simply make a (reasonable) inference? Maybe one of the brat kids from down the street poured water on it. It's reasonable to assume what you've apparently assumed, but does that really constitute "your dog [telling you something]?" :chin:
kazan May 12, 2025 at 04:31 #987212
Quoting Shawn
Now that was intense!


Imagine a balloon and a pin. The balloon does not need to be inflated, but it may be to narrow the intention, it could be argued. But who wants limits to imagination?

shrugged smile
kazan May 12, 2025 at 04:37 #987213
Quoting javi2541997
Melancolía is always my favourite word.


Having a favorite word (or favorite any thing) can be mood dependent for some people

cheerful smile
javi2541997 May 12, 2025 at 04:41 #987214
I agree, Reply to kazan.

Good morning.

Smoothly smile.
kazan May 12, 2025 at 04:47 #987216
Quoting javi2541997
Good morning.


And "Good afternoon" from downunder to you, amigo.

What do you have planned for today, anything unusual?

returned smile
javi2541997 May 12, 2025 at 04:54 #987218
Quoting kazan
What do you have planned for today, anything unusual?


No, amigo; this Monday will be ordinary, like most Mondays. I have to help my dad to pay a tax because he sold a property last Friday. Afterwards, I will drink a big bottle of strawberry kombucha.

What about you? What did you do today?
kazan May 12, 2025 at 05:02 #987219
Quoting Hanover
Each one is a snowflake, unique in its own special way.


And in its spelling, sometimes.

Quoting Hanover
My favorite word is "set," which holds the record as the word with the most meanings at 430.


Openeyed or is it openmouthed smile

kazan May 12, 2025 at 05:31 #987224
Quoting javi2541997
What about you? What did you do today?


So much normal,including looking forward to reading comments here..... the comedy of great minds let loose. The S/box specifically,of course.
"Normal" usually means 2-4 hrs of morning gardening when little as possible is done but achieves useful results ( defined as save heaps on household veges bill), collect mail (defined as a 3klms walk returning via the post office), numerous cups of tea, one cup of coffee... about to make now @3.15 pm, conversations with neighbors and often directing driving tourists who have relied on google maps or navman and can't read street signs because that means looking up from their phones or don't know the difference between "Turn left in 400 mtrs" and turning left in 350 mtrs...a simple mistake until you run out of hard top road and panic, feeling lost in the rural areas far (3 hrs) from familiar city "safety" where no one in the city would offer help anyway unless pleaded with..."too busy, mate...google it!"
As you can see not much happening in this physical world.

wry smile
Jamal May 12, 2025 at 05:37 #987226
Quoting Hanover
This stands against the concept of art is something only of museums


That's a relief because I find most museums to be really terrible places to appreciate art. I like the idea that art is public, but then I have to put up with the public.
kazan May 12, 2025 at 05:46 #987227
Quoting T Clark
Erudite-and-Stuff ®


"Erudite and stuffed" doesn't break copyright, does it?

smile
kazan May 12, 2025 at 05:55 #987229
Quoting Jamal
In searching for that I found out that temerity doesn't mean what I thought it meant. I thought it meant insolent, impertinent, cheeky. There's an overlap, but temerity is apparently more about recklessness. Who knew?

Thoughts?


Perhaps in "polite society" being insolent,impertinent, cheeky is nuanced down to being "reckless" and hence your thinking.
Just a thought.

smile
Outlander May 12, 2025 at 06:02 #987231
Quoting Jamal
That's a relief because I find most museums to be really terrible places to appreciate art. I like the idea that art is public, but then I have to put up with the public.


Very true. Unfortunately, ever since I made intellectualism and culture "cool" again, all the neighborhood thugs now like to congregate at the art museum after school. What was I thinking.
Jamal May 12, 2025 at 06:10 #987233
Reply to Outlander

Self-sacrifice is to be commended. Bask in the glory.
Jamal May 12, 2025 at 06:10 #987234
Quoting kazan
Just a thought


That's exactly what I asked for so thanks. Keep them coming.
kazan May 12, 2025 at 06:13 #987236
Art is realized when sold. Up until then it's just mucking about.

Just a thought.

smile at the temerity of that thought
Jamal May 12, 2025 at 06:44 #987238
Quoting Hanover
But art also might reveal a higher truth, which isn't mentioned in your erudition.


Adorno's view is interesting here. I don't suppose he would use the term "higher truth", but he sees a function for art over and above craft, entertainment, and self-expression, which is to negatively expose, through its refusal to be useful, the instrumental and coercive imperatives of administered and commodified society, thereby providing the image of something different and better. A model of freedom.

EDIT: In other words, all art is quite useless, and that is its only use.
Jamal May 12, 2025 at 06:50 #987241
Quoting Hanover
One objection I have to fiction is when there's no point to it, but just a curious tale. I can blather crazy bullshit all day long, so I don't need someone else's nonsense.


Each to their own, but there are levels of artistry in such fiction. Your nonsense is often inspired and energetic, but it's undeveloped. Nabokov, on the other hand, wrote exquisitely crafted curious tales which in their very craftsmanship indirectly affirm what's good about life and humanity, without having any "point". You could say the same about Borges.

Also, think about the music you like. Does it have a point or a message (leaving aside the words)? I think fiction can be like that.
Hanover May 12, 2025 at 12:37 #987254
Quoting Jamal
Your nonsense is often inspired and energetic, but it's undeveloped.


You're underdevloped.

Quoting Jamal
Also, think about the music you like. Does it have a point or a message (leaving aside the words)? I think fiction can be like that.


That is true, and I did watch more mindless television when I was younger, which I consider art. It might just be the time investment needed to read fiction and my attention span, although I do go in spurts.
Hanover May 12, 2025 at 12:42 #987255
Quoting Jamal
In other words, all art is quite useless, and that is its only use.


I don't agree with this, though. I think the line between poetry, for example, and literalism is just one of degree. A good amount of our language is metaphor and the best we can do is try to convey a mental thought into words so it can be transmitted. All communication is a reduction of an idea to a symbol and the symbol is by necessity not the thing. The artfulness of the expression is measured by how well it conveys the idea.

T Clark May 12, 2025 at 15:19 #987283
Pushed post button by mistake

T Clark May 12, 2025 at 15:21 #987284
Quoting javi2541997
Smoothly smile.


Ahora no empieces tú también
T Clark May 12, 2025 at 15:23 #987285
Quoting kazan
"Erudite and stuffed" doesn't break copyright, does it?


I would check with your intellectual property lawyer.
T Clark May 12, 2025 at 15:28 #987286
Quoting Jamal
Adorno's view is interesting here. I don't suppose he would use the term "higher truth", but he sees a function for art over and above craft, entertainment, and self-expression, which is to negatively expose, through its refusal to be useful, the instrumental and coercive imperatives of administered and commodified society, thereby providing the image of something different and better. A model of freedom.

EDIT: In other words, all art is quite useless, and that is its only use.


Worst. Definition. Ever.
T Clark May 12, 2025 at 15:29 #987287
Quoting Jamal
Nabokov, on the other hand, wrote exquisitely crafted curious tales which in their very craftsmanship indirectly affirm what's good about life and humanity, without having any "point".


Second. Worst. Definition. Ever.
Jamal May 12, 2025 at 16:33 #987301
javi2541997 May 12, 2025 at 16:45 #987304
Quoting T Clark
Ahora no empieces también


Excellent! You didn't forget to emphasise the accent in the u of 'tú'.

Sonrisa metafórica.
T Clark May 12, 2025 at 18:18 #987313
Quoting javi2541997
Excellent! You didn't forget to emphasise the accent in the u of 'tú'.


Give the credit to Google translate.
javi2541997 May 12, 2025 at 18:31 #987314
Reply to T Clark Don't be shy, Clarky. I know you wrote the phrase using just a handbook and the lessons I taught you in the past. :smile:

suanzes smile.
Outlander May 12, 2025 at 22:04 #987332
Picked up a 6-pack of my favorite IPA the other day. To my immense displeasure there appeared to be little floating specks/particles and unknown sediment at the bottom of just about every bottle. Only after having already drank two, which seemed to go down just fine, minus a slightly off taste.

Called the beer company. Apparently due to the nature of that specific IPA's brewing process, on occasion there can be some physical matter present that matches my description. Somehow, the gentleman managed to coax out of me my full name, address, and in his words "since [it's] a beer company" my date of birth. Probably shouldn't have been so chatty with my info, but what's done is done. I blame a combination of authority bias and the fact my brain doesn't really check in until a good 15-20 minutes after waking. Apparently, they're sending me a check for 20 USD in the mail. So, at least there's that.

True story. :grin:

What I am worrying about is psyching myself out and overthinking the visuals of it all and producing a psychosomatic effect leading to indigestion or perhaps worse. I read once in "Philosophy for Dummies" you can, apparently, actually think yourself to death. Or something like that. Apparently, King George I (1660-1727) was literally frightened to death by a letter tossed into his coach, purportedly from his deceased wife claiming he would suffer eternal torment. At least, that's what this fact book I ordered off of eBay says. Seems plausible. :confused:
Shawn May 12, 2025 at 22:06 #987333
User image
frank May 13, 2025 at 00:01 #987344
Take a rectangular frame and hold it up so you see the sky through it. You just turned the sky into art.
Metaphysician Undercover May 13, 2025 at 00:51 #987351
Quoting Outlander
Did it really "[tell you]", though? Which I believe requires some sort of conscious intent on part of the bearer.


When the dog comes in, stands right in front of you, and shakes its water all over you, it is definitely telling you something. Exactly what it is telling you is open to interpretation.
Shawn May 13, 2025 at 01:12 #987357
Reply to frank

Those pigs really dig it.
T Clark May 13, 2025 at 01:14 #987358
Quoting frank
Take a rectangular frame and hold it up so you see the sky through it. You just turned the sky into art.


Yes, it is art by what I call the @praxis criteria - It is presented with the intention that it be judged on an aesthetic basis.

frank May 13, 2025 at 01:16 #987360
Reply to T Clark
Whatever it is, that's what you need to understand Warhol. Warhol becomes a freakin' genius once you get it, that it's about what you experience.
T Clark May 13, 2025 at 01:20 #987365
Quoting frank
Whatever it is, that's what you need to understand Warhol. Warhol becomes a freakin' genius once you get it, that it's about what you experience.


I get it, but I don’t buy it.
frank May 13, 2025 at 01:21 #987367
Quoting T Clark
I get it, but I don’t buy it.


You couldn't afford it.
BC May 13, 2025 at 02:36 #987377
@Shawn: Pig!

User image
Shawn May 13, 2025 at 03:02 #987378
Reply to BC

It's all about pigs. Animal Farm all around, man!
javi2541997 May 13, 2025 at 04:28 #987381
Reply to BC The pig in the back is eating a burger of what... the remains of his uncle or beef? :yikes:

Frightened smile.
T Clark May 13, 2025 at 04:43 #987382
Quoting javi2541997
The pig in the back is eating a burger of what... the remains of his uncle or beef?


  • This little piggy went to market - that’s the driver
  • This little piggy stayed home - obviously, not shown
  • This little piggy had roast beef - that answers your question
  • This little piggy had none - front seat, passenger side
  • This little piggy went wee wee wee all the way home - rear seat, passenger side


javi2541997 May 13, 2025 at 05:25 #987383
Reply to T Clark Why are all of them little piggies? The driver seems to be older than we actually think.
kazan May 13, 2025 at 05:35 #987384
Quoting T Clark
I would check with your intellectual property lawyer.


You would do so without permission from here. But, it would be worth getting a second opinion considering his/its qualifications and past win/loss ratio.

smile



kazan May 13, 2025 at 05:39 #987385
Quoting Hanover
Thoughts?


Wondering if the order of the languages would alter the outcome?

curious smile
kazan May 13, 2025 at 05:52 #987387
Quoting javi2541997
The pig in the back is eating a burger of what... the remains of his uncle or beef? :yikes:


plant based protein pseudo "meat", perhaps if it's hip?

smile
kazan May 13, 2025 at 05:55 #987388
Quoting T Clark
This little piggy went to market - that’s the driver
This little piggy stayed home - obviously, not shown
This little piggy had roast beef - that answers your question
This little piggy had none - front seat, passenger side
This little piggy went wee wee wee all the way home - rear seat, passenger side


The 5 little piggies nursery rhyme.

appreciative smile
T Clark May 13, 2025 at 06:17 #987390
Quoting javi2541997
Why are all of them little piggies?


Don’t you have the five little piggies in Spanish? It’s something you say to your children while you count their toes.
javi2541997 May 13, 2025 at 06:33 #987394
Reply to kazan Reply to T Clark

Ah! It is a nursery rhyme.

I get it now.

No, we don't have the equivalent in Spanish because nursery rhymes are a British or Anglo-Saxon thing. We have the translation, but I am recalling now that we learnt some of them in English class when I was a kid.

I remember "Hey Diddle Diddle" and "London Bridge Is Falling Down". 
kazan May 13, 2025 at 06:40 #987396
@javi2541997,

"Ring a ring a rosy" and "Humpty Dumpty" are a couple more moralistic, libel or censorship avoiding English nursery rhymes.

smile
javi2541997 May 13, 2025 at 07:13 #987401
Reply to kazan ¡Interesante!

I believe it would be worth having a book of nursery rhymes in my home. I would check it whenever it was necessary.
Jamal May 13, 2025 at 07:20 #987402
Quoting javi2541997
I would check it whenever it was necessary.


Is it really ever necessary to check a nursery rhyme? Can you imagine a life-or-death situation in which you have to determine exactly which little piggy went to market?
javi2541997 May 13, 2025 at 07:29 #987403
Reply to Jamal Imagine the following situation: You are about to eat the best soup ever; but surprisingly, there aren't any spoons in your kitchen. You start to wonder where the spoons went, so a book of nursery rhymes can help you.

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Mystery solved! Your spoons ran away with the dish!
Jamal May 13, 2025 at 07:33 #987404
Reply to javi2541997

Nice one.

Not exactly life-or-death though, because you don't really need a spoon to eat soup.
Hanover May 13, 2025 at 09:18 #987410
Quoting javi2541997
Ah! It is a nursery rhyme.

I get it now.

No, we don't have the equivalent in Spanish because nursery rhymes are a British or Anglo-Saxon thing. We have the translation, but I am recalling now that we learnt some of them in English class when I was a kid.

I remember "Hey Diddle Diddle" and "London Bridge Is Falling Down".


Every nursery ryhme is indexed in the Roud Folk Index, so you can take a moment and read them all. There are over 200,000.

Hey Diddle Diddle is #19478. London Bridge is 502.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_folk_songs_by_Roud_number










Jamal May 13, 2025 at 09:22 #987411
Reply to Hanover

What we need is a ranking video.
Hanover May 13, 2025 at 09:46 #987413
Reply to Jamal I couldn't find that, but I did find this riveting lecture discussing the challenges of designing the index. These are the challenges of a true adrenaline junkie.
javi2541997 May 13, 2025 at 09:48 #987414
Reply to Hanover I wonder why Hey Diddle Diddle is #19478 but London Bridge is 502.

Who is in charge here? Why does he order the index in that way?
Jamal May 13, 2025 at 09:56 #987415
Reply to Hanover

Such is the riveting nature of the video, I'm not going to watch any of it now, because once I start I'll have to watch the whole thing.
Hanover May 13, 2025 at 11:29 #987419
Quoting javi2541997
Who is in charge here? Why does he order the index in that way?


That sexy man in the video is in charge, and he explains the rollercoaster ride he and his colleagues went through in the number assignment process. It doesn't help, after all he went through, that you now criticize him. I get that there is disappointment with some of the decisions, but at least show him some kindness for taking on the challenge of sorting through the mess that all the nursery rhyme writers left him over several hundred years, just leaving bits and scribbles here and there. That man is a fighter, filled with the grit and courage of a true librarian.
Shawn May 13, 2025 at 12:24 #987429
Fat naked happy.
javi2541997 May 13, 2025 at 12:26 #987430
Quoting Hanover
but at least show him some kindness for taking on the challenge of sorting through the mess that all the nursery rhyme writers left him over several hundred years,


The best I can do is contribute to his "GoFundMe" campaign.
T Clark May 13, 2025 at 15:23 #987456
Quoting javi2541997
Ah! It is a nursery rhyme.


You should memorize five little piggies. If you ever have children, you will need it. That and Cheerios. If you’re going to have children, you need five little piggies and Cheerios.
javi2541997 May 13, 2025 at 15:49 #987466
Reply to T Clark I don't see myself raising children, but I can memorise and recite "Five Little Piggies" to you before you go to bed, Clarky.
T Clark May 13, 2025 at 18:27 #987494
Quoting javi2541997
I can memorise and recite "Five Little Piggies" to you before you go to bed,


It has to be done in person. See this video. It’s fairly obnoxious and little Javi does not seem all that happy with it, but this is how it’s supposed to be done.


Shawn May 13, 2025 at 20:33 #987512
Tell the wolf to leave the pigs alone because daddy is home.

:ok:
BC May 13, 2025 at 22:56 #987539
Reply to javi2541997 Reply to kazan The "Ring around the Rosie" rhyme originated in the Black Death -- the great pneumonic / bubonic plague (which, btw, hasn't disappeared) that killed a large percentage of the world's population.

Ring around the rosy (a symptom of the plague)
a pocket full of poesy (a folk preventative measure -- didn't work)
ashes ashes
we all fall down.
(dead)

Humpty Dumpty's origins are debated, with theories suggesting he was either a large cannon, a siege engine, or even an allusion to King Richard III. The popular portrayal of him as an egg comes from Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass".

Elaboration:

Cannon Theory (but it's not canonical):

Some believe Humpty Dumpty was a large cannon used by the Royalists during the English Civil War, specifically during the Siege of Colchester in 1648.

Siege Engine Theory:

Another theory suggests he was a siege engine, a type of military machine used to breach walls or fortifications, deployed unsuccessfully in the Siege of Gloucester during the English Civil War.

Richard III Theory:

Some propose that the rhyme alludes to King Richard III, possibly due to his physical ailments and his defeat at Bosworth Field. ["My horse, my horse -- my kingdom for a horse" WS]. Seems like the least plausible theory.

Egg Origin:

The most widely known image of Humpty Dumpty as an egg comes from Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass" (1871) where he is depicted as a character with human features in the novel.

Nursery Rhyme Origin:

The nursery rhyme itself likely originated in late 18th century England, with the tune appearing in 1870.

Nursery rhymes are usually fairly benign.

Little Miss Muffet
sat on a tuffet
eating her curds and whey
along came a spider
and sat down beside her
and said, "what's in the bowl, bitch?" -- oops, that's the gay ending.
and frightened miss muffet away.

Children's folk tales can be downright horrifying, like the story about children who were turned into fire wood by a witch, and when they were put in the fire, screamed in agony. Under The Juniper Tree has a fine collection of horrifying folk tales for children.
javi2541997 May 14, 2025 at 04:46 #987579
Quoting BC
Children's folk tales can be downright horrifying, like the story about children who were turned into fire wood by a witch, and when they were put in the fire, screamed in agony.


Are you referring to Hansel and Gretel? It is well known that Grimms' Fairy Tales have dark themes for children. If I am not mistaken, some folks believe that Little Red Riding Hood is an allegory for children kidnapping or sexual abuse.
BC May 14, 2025 at 04:57 #987580
Reply to javi2541997 I wasn't thinking of Hansel and Gretel, but that's a fairly dark story too-- the step mother attempting to lose the children in the forest, permanently. Lots of fairy tales features wicked stepmothers -- which tells you something about bad family dynamics. Oh yes, Little Red Riding hood and the inevitable Big Bad Wolf. A friend who's published a number of books wrote a short novel sympathetic to the Big Bad Wolf, including its sexual preferences for young (human) girls. Of course one would prefer the lovely granddaughter to the wrinkled up, scrawny old grandmother, wouldn't one?

The Grim Brothers (1785-1863) subjected the stories they collected and published to their own peculiar sensibilities.

One of my favorite bedtime stories was the Billy Goats Gruff (about 3 goats and a troll). My father did an especially good job on this story, doing the clip-clops on the bridge and so forth.
javi2541997 May 14, 2025 at 05:33 #987583
Reply to BC Now that we are talking the dark perspective of fairy tales or children's literature, I remember that a secret organisation of powerful people did sex trafficking. One of the victims commented that the "clients" forced her to wear a Little Red Riding Hood costume because they were sexually attracted to fairy tales. Again, I believe children's literature can also have a dark hidden theme that is paedophilia.

Every fairy tale carries a twofold meaning. First, the children's innocent interpretation, followed by the adults' twisted fantasy.
Jamal May 14, 2025 at 06:06 #987585
Reply to javi2541997

Sexual fantasies are likely the preserve of adults, but I suspect that violent fantasies are indulged and enjoyed by children too. From a child's point of view (and mine), a fairy tale with a wolf is no fun unless someone gets eaten to death.
javi2541997 May 14, 2025 at 07:12 #987588
Reply to Jamal

Yes, good point and I agree.

But I believe fairy tales and children's literature overall are likely to help children to get a moral lesson. If a child gets eaten by a wolf, there is no moral lesson possible, and the child would probably get another lesson in life: "Eat before you get eaten," etc.
Jamal May 14, 2025 at 07:19 #987590
Reply to javi2541997

I want to disagree but I don't currently have the mental capacity to do so rationally.

EDIT: it strikes me that could be a good motto.
javi2541997 May 14, 2025 at 07:35 #987592
Reply to Jamal Let's eat a Vologda butter toast then. :razz:
Jamal May 14, 2025 at 07:36 #987593
Quoting Hanover
In other words, all art is quite useless, and that is its only use. — Jamal

I don't agree with this, though. I think the line between poetry, for example, and literalism is just one of degree. A good amount of our language is metaphor and the best we can do is try to convey a mental thought into words so it can be transmitted. All communication is a reduction of an idea to a symbol and the symbol is by necessity not the thing. The artfulness of the expression is measured by how well it conveys the idea.


I've been trying for two days, even neglecting to eat and sleep, to work out how this response constitutes a disagreement with my statement. Now I've cracked it.

Even if we accept that art communicates, the question is what is being communicated, and is whatever it is useful? Maybe what is being communicated is precisely what cannot be handed over to mere utility.

Oscar might say that if the idea being communicated by the art serves to, for example, inspire the troops or convince the masses to be satisfied with American cheese, then it's propaganda, not art.
Jamal May 14, 2025 at 07:37 #987594
Reply to javi2541997 Bon appetit!

I had mine already.
Outlander May 14, 2025 at 09:19 #987598
Quoting Jamal
Even if we accept that art communicates, the question is what is being communicated, and is whatever it is useful?


A traffic light communicates. Despite it being the simplest shape (or to some, a non-shape even) of color. It's the fact it is or otherwise holds the quality of being a differentiation from its surroundings. Which is all that is required to constitute something that is "observable" and (perhaps?) has intention to be. Look at the simplest forms of minimalist art. A circle on canvas basically just one color. It communicates whatever that color tends to communicate for the organism (in this case let's presume it to be a human being) is liable to perceive based on a combination of biology and learned concept. Even a few lone drops of paint on a large 10' canvas can communicate things such as "I'm lazy" or perhaps "You're dumb for paying 10 grand for this." :lol:
Jamal May 14, 2025 at 12:22 #987619
Reply to Outlander

Would you like some toast?
Hanover May 14, 2025 at 12:30 #987621
Quoting Jamal
I've been trying for two days, even neglecting to eat and sleep, to work out how this response constitutes a disagreement with my statement. Now I've cracked it.


Ah yes, becoming an ascetic for aesthetics, a common homonymnic reaction. I too have foregone all eat and drink, have walked miles with pebbles in my shoes, while flogging my back with a 200 pound chain, thinking as you that these two words were the same, again not paying sufficient attention to detail to important differences, just like my last employment review also indicated.

Now where was I?

Yes, back to your position, which is art to be art must be useless. This definition violates my worldview because I firmly believe, everything has use, has meaning, has purpose. The idea that the Mona Lisa is just a stark thing of meaningless beauty, just a marvel of marvels, without having done something, just an end, is a culmination, but serving no purpose but to just be, captures the essence not of art but of absurdity.

If I should momentarily take myself seriously, it is to point out that what I think humorous in my stories is that the meaningless happens. The meaningless cannot happen, which is why it is absurd. It is particularly absurd to someone who then tries to impart meaning to it, which they will if they are of the mindset that it must have meaning because all has meaning.

It's an interesting distinction in our positions, if I'm correct here, which is you find beauty in the meaningless, as some ultimate expression of humanity that is for what it is, but nothing more, yet i find that impossible, and even suggestive that would devalue the thing. It would be as if God created the universe just to have pretty things, but not for purpose, and somehow that would be good.

The idea of uselessness is where I have a problem it seems. In summary.
Jamal May 14, 2025 at 12:38 #987622
Reply to Hanover

But you've conflated use and purpose with meaning. Ha!
Hanover May 14, 2025 at 12:47 #987625
Quoting Jamal
But you've conflated use and purpose with meaning. Ha!


No! Un-ha! If it exists, it has meaning, which is to fulfill a purpose.

The artist paints to for a reason, to fulfill a purpose, that without would result in there not being what ought to be there. He's not useless. He's necessary.

Jamal May 14, 2025 at 12:49 #987626
Reply to Hanover

In that case the situation is as I'd predicted: you are working with a wider concept of use than I am. Of course an artists has a purpose, but the question is whether the finished work has a practical utility.

Ha!
T Clark May 14, 2025 at 15:17 #987649
Quoting Jamal
Oscar might say that if the idea being communicated by the art serves to, for example, inspire the troops or convince the masses to be satisfied with American cheese, then it's propaganda, not art.


Leave Velveeta out of this.
T Clark May 14, 2025 at 15:26 #987651
Quoting Hanover
Yes, back to your position, which is art to be art must be useless. This definition violates my worldview because I firmly believe, everything has use, has meaning, has purpose. The idea that the Mona Lisa is just a stark thing of meaningless beauty, just a marvel of marvels, without having done something, just an end, is a culmination, but serving no purpose but to just be, captures the essence not of art but of absurdity.


This brings to mind something R G Collingwood wrote in the “Principles of Art.” He said art did not exist separate from craft before the Enlightenment.
Outlander May 14, 2025 at 16:30 #987665
Quoting Jamal
Would you like some toast?


Toast, bread alone, even with butter, much like sweets and sugar is a taste that has (thankfully for my own health) departed me some time ago. I have fond memories growing up of toast, however; breakfast with my father at the local (now demolished) restaurant on weekends. What was it? Two eggs "over light" (which for some reason these days many folk will look at you like you just asked for a peep show at the very utterance), grits, corned beef hash (growing up as a kid I was unaware of the last two letters of the first word), and on occasion, country ham. Oh that country ham was something else. Thing is, it was a small rural joint next to a highway but still relatively in the middle of nowhere so, not sure if that had anything to do with it but, sometimes the ham was edible and very delicious, and sometimes not so much. And of course, a tall glass of orange juice. Oh yes. And a certain hot drink unique to my locale that shall have to remain nameless.

What a time that was. Thank you, Jamal. You've unlocked a memory. Mostly for me. I doubt you would have much use for it in this day and age anyhow. But. Who knows.

And yes, I would accept your toast. Only because it's you and I hold you in high regard (at least, the fabricated idea I have of you from our sparse online interaction, which I must say is surprisingly clear, at least in my own mind; incredible receptivity on my part or simply wishful thinking by an arrogant ego as large as the list of contradictions true philosophers grapple with daily? Who's to say.)

One praise I do have of toast, however, is that it seems, somehow, to add an additional or elevated taste or flavor to the bread. Somehow. Perhaps this is more psychosomatic than anything. A good breakfast egg sandwich with the yolk still liquid on bread that is toasted, is something I would pity knowing a person lived and died without ever experiencing, though.
Jamal May 14, 2025 at 16:46 #987669
Reply to Outlander

Marmalade, marmite, or just butter?
Jamal May 14, 2025 at 16:46 #987670
Quoting T Clark
Velveeta


:vomit:
Jamal May 14, 2025 at 17:10 #987673
Quoting T Clark
He said art did not exist separate from craft before the Enlightenment.


I dispute this. Cave paintings.
praxis May 14, 2025 at 17:22 #987675
Quoting T Clark
Yes, it is art by what I call the praxis criteria - It is presented with the intention that it be judged on an aesthetic basis.


:up:
frank May 14, 2025 at 18:22 #987683
Ars sine scientia nihil est
BC May 14, 2025 at 18:46 #987684
Quoting Jamal
Sexual fantasies are likely the preserve of adults


Children have sexual fantasies!
Hanover May 14, 2025 at 18:56 #987685
Quoting Jamal
In that case the situation is as I'd predicted: you are working with a wider concept of use than I am. Of course an artists has a purpose, but the question is whether the finished work has a practical utility.

Ha!


How, pray tell, can something lack cosmic practical utility?

This probing question insinuates the impossibility of purposelessness under a divine creation, and further implies that even at the micro level (i.e. the artist's personal intent) there is higher utility even if he has no idea why.

Our purpose, regardless of whether you shirk your responsibility in this regard, is to seek out the usefulness by careful examination.

As in, of what utility is this random blade of grass? Perhaps nothing more than to force you to realize everything matters.

But, should you ignore all I've said as so much horseshit, I thank you for that, as you're exactly where you ought to be, just like that blade of grass. Mine is the duty to learn what the utility of your response is.

But let's suppose you're right, that art is playtime, time off from creating for usefulness, then isn't my theory above art in itself, uselessness for play, which obviously provides me joy?

If art is uselessness, but my definition of art is that it is useful if purposeful, and because it's purposeful. It is useful, then am I wrong per se or is my definition just artistic because it's useless.

You're head is blown with the twists and turns.

Hah with two hs
Jamal May 14, 2025 at 19:04 #987689
Quoting Hanover
divine creation


With God on your side you'll always win. Doesn't seem fair.

T Clark May 14, 2025 at 19:11 #987693
Quoting Jamal
I dispute this. Cave paintings.


We can, and do, define art as anything we want it to be. Nobody seems to really be able to agree on it. I find Collingwood‘s way of looking at it plausible, useful, and consistent with my own experience.
Hanover May 14, 2025 at 19:32 #987697
Quoting Jamal
With God on your side you'll always win. Doesn't seem fair.


Fine, I'll write a song about it. Art requires art..
Jamal May 14, 2025 at 19:33 #987698
Reply to T Clark

Sure, but I was just saying I think cave paintings are art and were not also craft. But Collingwood was no dummy so I’d need to see the context to criticize Collingwood, which was not my intention anyway; I responded to the statement on its own.
Jamal May 14, 2025 at 19:37 #987700
Reply to T Clark

It goes without saying that you find a philosopher whose ideas you approve of agreeable. I find Adorno agreeable. That’s just a starting point. TPF is for diverse people like us to debate. Even the Shoutbox! Here, have some of my toast. I toasted it myself.
Jamal May 14, 2025 at 19:39 #987701
Quoting Hanover
Fine, I'll write a song about it. Art requires art..


A short poem will suffice.
Hanover May 14, 2025 at 20:03 #987704
Jamal May 14, 2025 at 20:26 #987708
Reply to Hanover

Is it art if it’s made by a computer?
Hanover May 14, 2025 at 21:04 #987711
Quoting Jamal
it art if it’s made by a computer?


If the existence of a tool between the hands and painting determines whether art, then only fingerprinting is art.

Mind blown.
Jamal May 14, 2025 at 21:26 #987716
Reply to Hanover

I liked some of the words but the music grew tiresome very fast.

But I don't accept your analogy. But that means I'll need to come up with a praxeological taxonomy to justify a classification of AI as different in kind from a paintbrush. Intuitively, though, using AI is like getting someone else to do it instead of doing it yourself, so it's not really in the same toolpark.
Hanover May 14, 2025 at 21:53 #987721
Quoting Jamal
But I don't accept your analogy. But that means I'll need to come up with a praxeological taxonomy to justify a classification of AI as different in kind from a paintbrush. Intuitively, though, using AI is like getting someone else to do it instead of doing it yourself, so it's not really in the same toolpark.


The distinction between art and not art you wish to suggest is that between the naturally occurring and the man-made (which i shall return to momentarily), yet you stumble and suggest it is failure to personally create the work in its entirety that eliminates its artfulness.

This stumble categorizes the collaborative as non-art, yet an orchestra creates art an beat machines to lyrics create art. AI is ultimately man made. That my collaborators are diverse and unknown does not non-art it make.

High level programming itself is the organization of previously created sub-routines, not the low level turning on and off of bits and bytes, yet we credit that programmer with his creation. By the same token, an architectural marvel of brick is not non-art because the bricks were made by machine.

Returning to the "man-made" issue, whether a dog can create art or whether a cloud can be art is another question. Interestingly, no one denies a photograph of a bird may be art, yet the same visual in the wild, maybe not. This gives credence to @frank's prior suggestion that holding up a frame to the sky is art.

And my lyrics weren't tiring. They were the sounds of the angels as they floated down from the heavens.

Jamal May 14, 2025 at 22:15 #987724
Quoting Hanover
The distinction between art and not art you wish to suggest


I don't know why everyone is accusing me of trying to define art. It wounds me, since I did no such thing.

Quoting Hanover
an architectural marvel of brick is not non-art because the bricks were made by machine.


It was designed and built by people (we can include other animals if you like, but although birds can build houses, it's a practical craft producing a practically useful result; as for dogs, have you ever seen a building designed or built by a dog? Exactly, they're rubbish)

I debunk the programmer analogy by the same token: the tech they use is like paintbrushes, and they remain the creators. Actually though, most programmers now use AI to write code—I've done it myself.

But that's a pointless digression. The main problem is your underhand tactics, which belie your claim to be speaking the word of God. I didn't say an artist to be an artist has to create a work in its entirety, certainly not that they have to create their tools themselves.
T Clark May 14, 2025 at 23:29 #987738
Quoting Jamal
It goes without saying that you find a philosopher whose ideas you approve of agreeable. I find Adorno agreeable. That’s just a starting point. TPF is for diverse people like us to debate.


It’s something I find myself doing more and more here on the forum these days. Once I’ve been through an argument several times and I’ve come up with a way of looking at things I find satisfying, it sometimes feels pointless to go through the argument again. It’s especially true in situations like this where I recognize how many ways there are to look at a particular issue.

I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad one. On one hand, it’s fun to try to work these things out. On the other, it’s really satisfying to get a strong personal understanding of how things work in a way that makes sense to you.

Quoting Jamal
Sure, but I was just saying I think cave paintings are art and were not also craft. But Collingwood was no dummy so I’d need to see the context to criticize Collingwood, which was not my intention anyway; I responded to the statement on its own.


This is a good example of what I’m talking about. I’ve come to think the whole concept of art is not a very useful one. I think that’s similar to what Collingwood is saying - the idea is something made up in the 16th century. There never was any need for it before. It has to do something with how humanity became more self-aware and maybe self-important. You know, the whole Enlightenment and stuff.

That last part is not really Collingwood, it’s me riffing on him.




Metaphysician Undercover May 15, 2025 at 02:22 #987750
Quoting BC
Children have sexual fantasies!


How would you interpret Goldilocks and the bears? Is Goldi a rich girl from Beverly Hills with an attitude of entitlement, or is she a child with a sexual fantasy about sleeping with a bear? Both?
Hanover May 15, 2025 at 02:56 #987752
Quoting Jamal
The main problem is your underhand tactics, which belie your claim to be speaking the word of God. I didn't say an artist to be an artist has to create a work in its entirety, certainly not that they have to create their tools themselves.


Inherent in argument from analogy is drawing distinctions in those things being compared, as the two things compared are obviously not exact, but only similar.

And so then I say the distinction between paintbrushes for oil painting versus AI for my song creation is but of degree and not of type, and so the analogy holds.

But nay! You disagree. So then, provide your praxeological taxonomical description for the one that's not the other to prove the analogy fails.

But this I say without hesitation: there is no doubt creativity was infused in my song albeit with lyrics tiring, and such is so even should that creative flare be far less than what an actual musician might create from scratch on his guitar. It is therefore art, weak as it might be.

Quoting Jamal
don't know why everyone is accusing me of trying to define art. It wounds me, since I did no such thing.


My apologies for your wounding. I wish you speedy healing. I thought though you at least provided us an element of what you felt art contained, and that is lack of utility.
Quoting Jamal
for dogs, have you ever seen a building designed or built by a dog? Exactly, they're rubbish)


Fred put his 110 body upon mine, awakening me due to his fear from a heavy storm. What he built with me that stormy evening was trust, something meaningful and purposeful, and surely not rubbish. Is trust a form of art? If it's not, I'm not going to be the one to say it. It would take a story about a man and his dog so touching and sweet and it would destroy it, and I'm just not going to do that.
BC May 15, 2025 at 03:26 #987757
Reply to Metaphysician Undercover Goldilocks starts off by violating the privacy of the 3 bears -- entering their house uninvited. She then contaminates? defiles? violates? the 3 bears' food, their chairs, and their beds. Has this girl no boundaries? Does she feel entitled to enter others' homes? In each case, (at least in the British version I consulted--no one has put me to sleep with this story for at least 74 years) she finds the baby bear's oatmeal, his chair, and his bed to be preferable. One could read a sexual element into this, but it seems fairly benign.

The story is set in the Forest -- not a safe place in the days of yore. Were the bedtime story made into a movie, we would all plainly see that entering a seductive little house in the forest was A Very Bad Idea -- pretty much like Hansel and Gretel going into that odd little house made out of gingerbread.

Perhaps our Goldilocks story has an older, more sinister version which has been lost? Perhaps the adult bears gave Goldilocks to the little bear to despoil, or Papa Bear might have preferred to screw Goldilocks silly, and maybe Mama bear made a slave of her, making her clean the kitchen, latrine, and so forth?

Otherwise, Goldilocks has the sort of sequence, progression and repetition that engages children, and there is just a little scariness to the story, but not enough to put a child off. When Goldilocks wakes up, she get's the hell out of there as fast as she can, finally recognizing DANGER.
Shawn May 15, 2025 at 05:15 #987772
The butterfly effect is one of those movies you gotta watch if you haven't already.
javi2541997 May 15, 2025 at 05:49 #987777
Reply to Shawn A very good film! I watched it years ago when I was still immature, and I believe it is worth watching it again.
Jamal May 15, 2025 at 06:26 #987779
Quoting T Clark
It’s something I find myself doing more and more here on the forum these days. Once I’ve been through an argument several times and I’ve come up with a way of looking at things I find satisfying, it sometimes feels pointless to go through the argument again. It’s especially true in situations like this where I recognize how many ways there are to look at a particular issue.

I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad one. On one hand, it’s fun to try to work these things out. On the other, it’s really satisfying to get a strong personal understanding of how things work in a way that makes sense to you.


Sometimes I don't really know what I think till I bounce stuff other people. Also I've learned to be suspicious of opinions of mine that feel like a comfortable pair of slippers.

But on your side, one can lose sight of one's insights when one is forced to justify them too soon, so discussion can be dangerously disillusionating, particularly when faced with uncharitable, pedantic critics.
Jamal May 15, 2025 at 06:34 #987781
Quoting Hanover
But nay! You disagree. So then, provide your praxeological taxonomical description for the one that's not the other to prove the analogy fails.


You first!

Quoting Hanover
But this I say without hesitation: there is no doubt creativity was infused in my song albeit with lyrics tiring, and such is so even should that creative flare be far less than what an actual musician might create from scratch on his guitar. It is therefore art, weak as it might be.


By the way, I said the music was tiresome, not the lyrics. Be that as it may be, I would prefer if you did not use the phrase "such is so" from now on and henceforth.

Now, turning to your substantive point, namely that it's a continuum. To which I say: is it though?

Quoting Hanover
I thought though you at least provided us an element of what you felt art contained, and that is lack of utility.


Yes, that would be a necessary condition but not a sufficient one. There are other useless things apart from art.

Quoting Hanover
Fred put his 110 body upon mine, awakening me due to his fear from a heavy storm. What he built with me that stormy evening was trust, something meaningful and purposeful, and surely not rubbish. Is trust a form of art? If it's not, I'm not going to be the one to say it. It would take a story about a man and his dog so touching and sweet and it would destroy it, and I'm just not going to do that.


This is a transparently rhetorical ploy to gain support from the audience and I refuse to play that game!
kazan May 15, 2025 at 06:36 #987782
Quoting Jamal
Also I've learned to be suspicious of opinions of mine that feel like a comfortable pair of slippers.


Can be hard to keep pebbles in a pair of slippers. Agree with the sentiment. It's not self doubt, it's ongoing self evaluation/growth.

Quoting Jamal
I refuse to play that game!


Makes amusing reading though.



smile
Jamal May 15, 2025 at 06:47 #987783
Quoting T Clark
This is a good example of what I’m talking about. I’ve come to think the whole concept of art is not a very useful one. I think that’s similar to what Collingwood is saying - the idea is something made up in the 16th century. There never was any need for it before. It has to do something with how humanity became more self-aware and maybe self-important. You know, the whole Enlightenment and stuff.

That last part is not really Collingwood, it’s me riffing on him.


Yeah, I'm sort of sympathetic to that. An overlapping point is the historical and geographical specificity of the idea of the artwork, as an unrepeatable and uniquely valuable individual object, almost like it has special powers. It's a fetishization, and as far as I know it's distinctly European and modern (maybe Renaissance onwards). Contrast with Japanese print-making, in which artworks are made to be reproduced.

However, I think these are both examples of art, so I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that art itself is not an appropriate category. I just think it has fuzzy boundaries. And even if "there never was any need for it before," maybe there's a need for it in the modern world.
Jamal May 15, 2025 at 07:20 #987786
@T Clark @Hanover

I've changed my mind.

I was going to tentatively offer an actual definition of art: art is creativity directed to the production of something that has no practical utility. But now I don't agree with it. It is, I agree, Enlightenment Eurocentric and elitist.

Now I'm more sympathetic to this:

Quoting T Clark
It is presented with the intention that it be judged on an aesthetic basis.


This is much more inclusive.

Not that I think a definition of art is necessarily a good or possible thing to find.
Outlander May 15, 2025 at 09:02 #987808
Quoting Jamal
Not that I think a definition of art is necessarily a good or possible thing to find.


Can a non-human create art? Is a human throwing a bottle of some condiment in a fit of rage against a wall that happens to create a mesmerizing pattern people seem to appreciate art? What about if he simply passed out and spilled something on the floor that resulted in the same?

Can a slug leaving a trail in a marvelous pattern that seems to defy all previously held notion of slug-based capability be art?

If a blind man paints a painting that is never seen by anyone ie. is never observed (and perhaps was never intended to), is that art? More crudely, if art is simply placing something in a peculiar way to be observed, why do we not commonly consider impolite users of the restroom (and their.. "works") as art and artists? :chin:

So many questions. Fortunately, plenty of time. :lol:
Jamal May 15, 2025 at 09:12 #987809
Quoting Outlander
Is a human throwing a bottle of some condiment in a fit of rage against a wall that happens to create a mesmerizing pattern people seem to appreciate art? What about if he simply passed out and spilled something on the floor that resulted in the same?


I’ll try one answer to see if it works. Either the pre-condition of intention or the post-condition of reception is required. So it’s art if he meant to throw it at the wall with creative intention, or if other people treat the result as an aesthetic object. Does that work?

If it does, then if we treat the slug-pattern aesthetically then the slug is an artist.

It also follows that the unseen work is art too, because of the intention behind it.

But my feeling is that my approach here is all wrong.
Jamal May 15, 2025 at 09:18 #987810
Quoting kazan
Makes amusing reading though.


Yes, Hanover is the TPF clown.
javi2541997 May 15, 2025 at 09:25 #987811
Quoting Jamal
Yes, Hanover is the TPF clown.


If he is the clown, who is the ventriloquist?

Who pulls the strings?

:scream:
Shawn May 15, 2025 at 09:32 #987812
The more you study things, the more you get to know that mathematics can describe everything.

Creation is a form of art, appreciated, from and by God's own will.
Hanover May 15, 2025 at 10:14 #987813
Quoting Jamal
It is, I agree, Enlightenment Eurocentric and elitist.


Just self-deprecating ad hom Euro-elitst humility parading.

Quoting Outlander
Can a slug leaving a trail in a marvelous pattern that seems to defy all previously held notion of slug-based capability be art?


Aesthetic qualities can be present without the object being art, as in a beautiful sunset. The art aspect derives, I insist, in it being a communicative act, the conveyance of meaning, like a speech act.

We then debate whether the speech act can be useful or not, but that is diversion I suggest. I say it can be useful and still be art, but I also impose my worldview regarding the impossibility of uselessness, but I do realize that view is highly idiosyncratic.

My view is that drawing distinctions between my saying "hello" and my singing it or my drawing the word on canvass with flowery letters will fall. They all are art, all conveying meaning, just perhaps different meanings in different ways.
Jamal May 15, 2025 at 10:21 #987814
Quoting Hanover
Just self-deprecating ad hom Euro-elitst humility parading.


I confess I'd hoped to garner some comments congratulating me for my intellectual honesty and willingness to think again.
Hanover May 15, 2025 at 10:22 #987815
Quoting Jamal
It is presented with the intention that it be judged on an aesthetic basis.
— T Clark

This is much more inclusive.

Not that I think a definition of art is necessarily a good or possible thing to find.


Still not perfect because it would deny the accidental artist, the person with the creative flare whose speech is like poetry or organizational skills like a decorator, but who never considered how their actions might be judged.
Hanover May 15, 2025 at 10:25 #987816
Quoting Jamal
confess I'd hoped to garner some comments congratulating me for my intellectual honesty and willingness to think again.


Fair, but you called me a clown, so I could find no love for the moment.
Jamal May 15, 2025 at 10:27 #987817
Reply to Hanover

Fair point, don't know about the examples. Decorators probably do consider it.

But I recognize the creative impulse as artistic even when nobody will experience the work produced, and this goes back to @Outlander's question about art that will never be seen. I think it's still reasonable to call it art.
Jamal May 15, 2025 at 10:28 #987818
Quoting Hanover
Fair, but you called me a clown, so I could find no love for the moment.


It's a compliment in my book. I'm trying to tie play, silliness, and therefore clowning and foolishness, into my philosophy.
Metaphysician Undercover May 15, 2025 at 10:55 #987819
Quoting Outlander
Is a human throwing a bottle of some condiment in a fit of rage against a wall that happens to create a mesmerizing pattern people seem to appreciate art?


Here's one I tried as a university kid. Have someone pedal an upside down bike, and bounce empty beer bottles off the spinning tire, catch them if they come toward you. That's like graffiti, where someone has to clean up the mess which is another person's art.

Maybe sometimes the real art is in the act, not the end product, but the "happening". Music may cross the boundary, where the intentional act is the art. Then we have a beautiful (or not so beautiful), somewhat repeatable, act which is art. The aftermath of a rock concert shows that the problem of cleaning up the mess which results from someone else's artwork, remains.

That's the undisciplined, 'ugly' side of art.
Hanover May 15, 2025 at 11:01 #987820

For your consideration, without consideration if it be good art, the question is whether the picture hanging in my well appointed hotel room of Columbia Missouri is art but the picture from my window of Columbia Missouri is not. User image
User image

And did the picture I took become art when I snapped the picture, even though my personal visualization of the thing was the exact same.
Hanover May 15, 2025 at 11:07 #987821
Quoting Jamal
Fair point, don't know about the examples. Decorators probably do consider it.


Allowance of some examples of accidental art creates a slippery slope because if some speech acts (for example) are poetic even if unintended, then all must be evaluated to determine if art. At that point, we must define beauty per se, without regard to the speaker's intent. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, art is whatever i say it is. If that, and I insist all is beautiful but just in varying degree, I am back to all communication being art, just and better than others.
Jamal May 15, 2025 at 11:15 #987823
Quoting Hanover
For your consideration, without consideration if it be good art, the question is whether the picture hanging in my well appointed hotel room of Columbia Missouri is art but the picture from my window of Columbia Missouri is not.


I don't know, but I prefer yours. If only you'd got the horizon straight and had managed to take up more of the frame with the roofs, and had opened the window to avoid the reflections, it would be a good piece of art. As it is, it's just art.

The other one is horrible. The fake colour hits me like fake sweetness.
frank May 15, 2025 at 13:11 #987834

Rudyard Kipling visited Mark Twain once and during the visit, he communicated how much he loved Tom Sawyer. Twain exclaimed, "Oh yea! Tom Sawyer, I'm rewriting that."

Kipling was like: "wut? You can't rewrite it."
Twain was like "Sure I can! It's my story. I'm rewriting it!"

Probably Mark Twain was being a goofball, but what if he was serious? Who is right? Twain or Kipling?
Hanover May 15, 2025 at 14:09 #987844
Quoting Jamal
don't know, but I prefer yours.


If my picture of reality intended not for aesthetics but to just to convey the literal is not art, is the same to be said of the picture of the picture? Does the Mona Lisa cease being art if I photograph it just to show you I'm at the Louvre? But suppose you see my picture of it and are moved to tears? Is it then art, despite my intent? Suppose your tears are not from its beauty, but you're just jelly Hanover is in Paris while you're embedded in a Dostoevsky novel?

Or, is it a dichotomous schizophrenic episode, where the substance of the Mona Lisa is art but the purpose of letting you know where I am is not art because that aspect is useful, thus (ha!) making it art and not art simultaneously, creating an actual existing A & ~ A contradiction?

This is so God damned complicated.

Hanover May 15, 2025 at 14:09 #987845
Quoting Jamal
It's a compliment in my book


Tanks!
Jamal May 15, 2025 at 14:14 #987847
Quoting Hanover
This is so God damned complicated.


Yes, I throw my hands up and pussyfoot towards the kitchen.
T Clark May 15, 2025 at 14:20 #987850
Reply to Hanover

Quoting Hanover
the question is whether the picture hanging in my well appointed hotel room of Columbia Missouri is art but the picture from my window of Columbia Missouri is not.


Ignoring your question, is that a flying saucer, space shuttle, or blimp in the background of your photograph?
Hanover May 15, 2025 at 14:27 #987853
Reply to T Clark It's earth. I'm on the moon.
praxis May 15, 2025 at 14:43 #987854
Quoting Jamal
If only you'd got the horizon straight and had managed to take up more of the frame with the roofs, and had opened the window to avoid the reflections, it would be a good piece of art.


I like the crooked horizon line but the compositional snafu of being in the middle of the frame is unforgivable.
T Clark May 15, 2025 at 14:45 #987856
Quoting Jamal
Sometimes I don't really know what I think till I bounce stuff other people.


Yes, that's one of the best things about the forum. But I'm talking about situations where I have been in discussions of an issue numerous times before.

Quoting Jamal
Also I've learned to be suspicious of opinions of mine that feel like a comfortable pair of slippers.


Yes, I am also skeptical of your opinions. But seriously folks, I might be interested in taking an issue further, but before that happens, we have to go back through the basic questions again, which loses its charm after a while. This is especially true for my favorite issues - metaphysics and epistemology.

Quoting Jamal
However, I think these are both examples of art, so I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that art itself is not an appropriate category. I just think it has fuzzy boundaries. And even if "there never was any need for it before," maybe there's a need for it in the modern world.


I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy. Perhaps I should be ashamed to admit that much of it is crap. But then, there are some that are wonderfully written and moving, e.g. "The Magicians" and "Ancillary Justice" trilogies. Those are the distinctions that matter to me - crap vs. wonderful, not art vs. non-art.

Quoting Jamal
art is creativity directed to the production of something that has no practical utility.


This comes back to the art vs. craft distinction. There is no reason art can't also be craft and no reason it can't be useful.

Jamal May 15, 2025 at 14:50 #987859
Quoting Jamal
art is creativity directed to the production of something that has no practical utility.


Quoting T Clark
This comes back to the art vs. craft distinction. There is no reason art can't also be craft and no reason it can't be useful.


For the record, that was a definition I was going to offer but which I now disagree with, roughly for the reason you give. Which is to say, I sort of agree.
T Clark May 15, 2025 at 14:51 #987860
Quoting Hanover
Allowance of some examples of accidental art creates a slippery slope because if some speech acts (for example) are poetic even if unintended, then all must be evaluated to determine if art. At that point, we must define beauty per se, without regard to the speaker's intent. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, art is whatever i say it is. If that, and I insist all is beautiful but just in varying degree,


This brings to mind Robert Pirsig's definition of art from "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" - Art is high quality endeavor. I used to like this, mostly because it is short and easy to remember, but now I find it unconvincing.
T Clark May 15, 2025 at 14:52 #987861
Quoting Jamal
For the record, that was a definition I was going to offer but which I now disagree with, roughly for the reason you give. Which is to say, I sort of agree.


User image
Outlander May 15, 2025 at 15:01 #987862
This conversation is really fascinating and all, it's come a very long way but I feel it bottlenecks (no pun intended) or perhaps comes to a climax or eventual final debate of: "can trash be art?"

User image

Well. What do you think? Original "artwork" (unless it's not). :cool:

I call this one "Man Unquenchable". It's one of my earlier works of course but still has its own following. Just kidding. I lie a lot.
T Clark May 15, 2025 at 16:52 #987875
On the subject of whining versus whinging. Something I’ve wondered about…

…whinge is some east-Canadian idiom for vigorous high-pitched complaining, almost like whining except with a semantic tinge of legitimacy to the complaint.


From”Infinite Jest,” which I’m still reading at 100 pages a month.

Jamal May 15, 2025 at 17:07 #987879
Reply to T Clark

In Britain, where "whinge" is commonly used, I don't think it has any hint of legitimacy. In fact whinging is if anything worse, more annoying, more strident, and less justified. No doubt the semantic tinges are different in North America.

EDIT: I've now changed my mind and think DFW was right.
T Clark May 15, 2025 at 17:31 #987881
Quoting Jamal
In Britain, where "whinge" is commonly used, I don't think it has any hint of legitimacy. In fact whinging is if anything worse, more annoying, more strident, and less justified. No doubt the semantic tinges are different in North America.


I didn’t include the definition because I think it is accurate, but because I think it’s amusing. It’s also characteristic of the kind of things that Wallace puts in the book.

I had never heard the words “whing,” or “whinging” until I started on the forum. I don’t think it’s used much in the United States. It’s one of those charmingish/charmingoid Commonwealth idiosyncrasies.
Jamal May 15, 2025 at 17:33 #987883
Quoting T Clark
I didn’t include the definition because I think it is accurate


I know that. I wasn't arguing against you. It was an interesting quote so I grappled with it.

I now agree with him.
T Clark May 15, 2025 at 18:19 #987895
Quoting Jamal
I know that. I wasn't arguing against you. It was an interesting quote so I grappled with it.


Do you use “whine” in the UK?
Hanover May 15, 2025 at 18:36 #987900
Quoting T Clark
This brings to mind Robert Pirsig's definition of art from "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" - Art is high quality endeavor. I used to like this, mostly because it is short and easy to remember, but now I find it unconvincing.


My view on Pirsig's book was that it was a discussion of the meaning of quality, pointing out examples of instances where quality was replaced by mechanization, where creation of goods and services no longer takes artisan craftsmanship, but we can systemitize all creation. We see that now with AI where what we thought was reserved for human creativity is now improved and replaced by computer models.

This even holds true now for pictures and music.

The area of aesthetics is important because it is arguably uniquely human. While non-humans can create things of appreciation, only humans can appreciate. It is the distinction between qualitos and quantitos discussed by Soloveitchik (who?), as in the spiritual versus the technological. The question then of pragmatic or maybe even of moral consideration is how much of the spiritual should be preserved, denying entry of certain technological advancements into the artisan realm.

That is, we protect the cobbler to produce old world shoes not because there is anything better about his shoes, but that preservation of a way of life preserves something worth protecting for human meaning and fulfillment. Pride in one's creation is something, for instance, that is worth protecting that could be lost if we allow the most creative of enterprises to be replaced by algorithems.












Jamal May 15, 2025 at 18:41 #987901
Quoting T Clark
Do you use “whine” in the UK?


Yes, but (a) I've often used it in other countries; and (b) it's not just me—most other people in Britain do too.
Moliere May 15, 2025 at 23:30 #987963
The dialectic of progressively weakening my claim....
Moliere May 15, 2025 at 23:55 #987969
https://thebasecamp.substack.com/p/attention-is-first-philosophy Interesting reflection from a fellow traveler.
T Clark May 16, 2025 at 03:51 #988040
Quoting Hanover
My view on Pirsig's book was that it was a discussion of the meaning of quality, pointing out examples of instances where quality was replaced by mechanization, where creation of goods and services no longer takes artisan craftsmanship, but we can systemitize all creation.


It’s been more than 40 years since I’ve read the book. I tried to go back and read it again a few years ago and had a hard time getting into it. If I remember correctly, the quote I gave about art came up in association with a welder skillfully fixing the fender on his motorcycle. When Pirsig commented on the quality to the welder, he responded somewhat dismissively.

Quoting Hanover
The area of aesthetics is important because it is arguably uniquely human.


I’m not certain aesthetics is either important or uniquely human. I do think quality is important. That’s not the same thing is it?

Quoting Hanover
That is, we protect the cobbler to produce old world shoes not because there is anything better about his shoes, but that preservation of a way of life preserves something worth protecting for human meaning and fulfillment. Pride in one's creation is something, for instance, that is worth protecting that could be lost if we allow the most creative of enterprises to be replaced by algorithems.


I’m not sure this makes sense. I did take pride in the work oI did as an engineer and I do think it was of high-quality.


javi2541997 May 16, 2025 at 04:44 #988054
This is not related to art; it's not even close to the fascinating conversation you are having about aesthetics. But I think it is important to understand and learn about the culinary culture of other countries; for example, did you know that some folks drink tea at dinner? Russians do so; I learnt this reading Dostoevsky. American mates eat cereal for dinner instead of breakfast, etc. We don't do anything close. I had sushi for dinner last night, but I drank water. I thought this was what most people do, but I was wrong!
Jamal May 16, 2025 at 04:51 #988055
Reply to javi2541997

Then there's the thorny question of what you mean by "dinner". In Britain it can mean the evening meal or just the main meal, which can be at lunchtime. It looks like you mean cena, which is the evening meal. But your evening meal is probably at midnight or something :grin:

I have not seen Russians drinking tea at dinner-time. I guess things have changed since Dostoevsky.
Shawn May 16, 2025 at 04:51 #988056
ParanoiaGPT hereabouts.
kazan May 16, 2025 at 05:10 #988062
Quoting Outlander
why do we not commonly consider impolite users of the restroom (and their.. "works") as art and artists? :chin:


If it elicits a response in the viewer, perhaps that does pass the requirement of some art definitions?

Quoting javi2541997
Who pulls the strings?


And who pulls his strings, ad infinitum, ad....

big smile
kazan May 16, 2025 at 05:29 #988068
Quoting Hanover
Fair, but you called me a clown, so I could find no love for the moment.


THE POWER OF TRUTH!.......

Just a suggestion.

grin
kazan May 16, 2025 at 05:35 #988073
Quoting Shawn
The more you study things, the more you get to know that mathematics can describe everything.


Would the word "why" fall within your understanding of the above "everything"? Or put another way, would "everything" include "why"?

Just a quick question.

unsure smile

kazan May 16, 2025 at 05:40 #988075
Quoting Jamal
I confess I'd hoped to garner some comments congratulating me for my intellectual honesty and willingness to think again.


A temporary leave of your senses? Around here?

smile
javi2541997 May 16, 2025 at 05:44 #988076
Quoting Jamal
It looks like you mean cena, which is the evening meal. But your evening meal is probably at midnight or something


Exactly! I was referring to cena. I am glad you can understand me because you lived here!

Quoting Jamal
I have not seen Russians drinking tea at dinner-time. I guess things have changed since Dostoevsky.


Really? Nétochka and Lizaveta no longer wear corsets and hobble skirts? Carts were substituted by vehicles and trains? What a disappointment! :wink:
javi2541997 May 16, 2025 at 05:46 #988078
Quoting kazan
And who pulls his strings, ad infinitum, ad....


It was you!

Peachy smile.
kazan May 16, 2025 at 05:58 #988081
Quoting javi2541997
It was you!


Is that a curse or a compliment?

Quoting javi2541997
Really? Nétochka and Lizaveta no longer wear corsets and hobble skirts? Carts were substituted by vehicles and trains? What a disappointment! :wink:


Edgy, but funny, Javi. You're in fine fettle, this morning, amigo.

Tea time here, as in a cup of tea consumed with the evening, most nutrient dense meal of the day called tea, just to confuse the western hemisphere Anglophones.



mango seed sucking smile
javi2541997 May 16, 2025 at 06:37 #988090
Reply to kazan :rofl: :rofl:

It was a compliment, of course!

Quoting kazan
Edgy, but funny, Javi. You're in fine fettle, this morning, amigo.


Too much coffee and olive oil in the breakfast, amigo...

Quoting kazan
mango seed sucking smile


Orange juice smile.
Hanover May 16, 2025 at 10:06 #988111
Quoting javi2541997
American mates eat cereal for dinner instead of breakfast, etc. We don't do anything close.


That would be considered a very lazy dinner and probably by a college student or someone who isn't doing a great job taking care of himself.

Quoting Jamal
In Britain it can mean the evening meal or just the main meal, which can be at lunchtime.


That's a thing too in the southern US, probably inherited from the Brits. Sunday "dinner" in particular seems the last holdout of using the term for the midday meal, which is lunch in all other instances. I only hear it called dinner in rural or more traditional homes, eaten after church services.

"Supper" is used for the evening meal, but it too seems more rare, and it has a less sophisticated feel to it. A restaurant menu would invariably read "Dinner Menu" and not "Supper Menu."

Breakfast is never dinner or supper or lunch regardless of how big the meal is or how yokel you are.

You can have breakfast for dinner, which would mean bacon, waffles, and the like (not, "and such" though). That's just a fun variation, but it would never be just Froot Loops or something like that. That'd just be lame.

Sometimes when I'm in a hurry and have little time for nonsense, I say brekky, giving me time for some extra toast or another bite of bacon before taking on the world.

I might have to say it today. Not sure yet.
Hanover May 16, 2025 at 12:49 #988133
Quoting T Clark
I’m not certain aesthetics is either important or uniquely human. I do think quality is important. That’s not the same thing is it?


I'd think aesthetics is central to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintanance in that aesthetics would be how we would recognize quality. This distinction between quality (value) and quantity (measurement) is what I think it gets at, and it arguably is what describes Cartesian substance divisions. It creates arguments over qualia as well. It's what I was referencing in the Soloveitchik book. This is the attempt to find the humananity in the human.

I do think it's uniquely human, just because of its higher function. Maybe a monkey experiences awe, but that's hard to believe.

Quoting T Clark
I’m not sure this makes sense. I did take pride in the work oI did as an engineer and I do think it was of high-quality.


Your having taken pride in your work doesn't contradict the claims being made here. You're human, so I'd expect you to fully experience the qualitative life, particularly in instances where you impart your humanity into your experience.

An example from the book (and I too read it very long ago) would be of Samurai sword makers. There is a reverence in the making of the blade and an intuitive grasp of what needs to be done. It would be a different sword if just mass produced, even if were quantatively the same. Meaning is not imparted in mass production the way it is when the Samurai does it. Think real diamond versus lab produced.

And maybe there is some Marxism in here lurking, suggesting the alienation of the person from his labor leads to dissatisfaction, but that takes us in a different direction, but it does evoke such thoughts. Also, saying "Marx" is a way to get more responses to my posts around here.


frank May 16, 2025 at 16:29 #988157
Reply to Hanover Would you drink a steak flavored milkshake?
Hanover May 16, 2025 at 18:02 #988181
Quoting frank
Would you drink a steak flavored milkshake?


Sounds treif.
BC May 16, 2025 at 19:21 #988200
Reply to javi2541997 When I was growing up (back in the '50s and '60s) we always had tea with the evening meal. Supper was usually leftovers or something fairly quick to cook and on the lighter side. Sometimes waffles were on the menu. Not sure if bacon was included; it probably was, and if so, was usually fried too long.

As for Dostoyevsky, he lived between 1821 and 1881. Russian culture might have changed just a little bit since then. I don't know what Russians are drinking these days, besides vodka.
Punshhh May 16, 2025 at 21:05 #988214
Reply to BC My grandad on my fathers side would have pint of tea with every meal. As a child I remember being handed a pint mug of tea, as they were passed round the table. Poured from a large steel teapot on the stove. The tea was mashed on the stove.
Hanover May 16, 2025 at 21:47 #988218
Reply to Punshhh Iced tea?
Jamal May 16, 2025 at 21:56 #988220
Quoting BC
I don't know what Russians are drinking these days, besides vodka.


Kvass, Mors, Kompot, coffee, Georgian lemonade, wine, Armenian brandy, kefir, Irn Bru (no idea why), gimlets, and Coca-Cola.
Jamal May 16, 2025 at 22:06 #988223
And beer and whisky, both apparently unaffected by sanctions.
Hanover May 16, 2025 at 22:27 #988224
Coca-cola is from Atlanta. You're welcome.
javi2541997 May 17, 2025 at 05:46 #988257
Quoting BC
Supper was usually leftovers or something fairly quick to cook and on the lighter side.


I eat leftovers with vegetables for supper almost every day. Leftovers are still a significant part of our gastronomy. Most of the main dishes of Madrid and Andalucía were leftovers back in the day; but they now have some popularity. For me, a well-cooked cocido or pringá cheers up the day.

I will be honest. Our gastronomy has leftovers because we were a very poor country with Franco. So, both in the countryside and town, the people had to be more creative with the basic food available. Thanks to this, we created one of our main insignia brands: tapas.

I love tapas (as do most tourists), but they are essentially leftovers: bread plus a bit from here and there that remained in the preserve or store.

User image
Jamal May 17, 2025 at 06:02 #988260
Reply to javi2541997

My favourite leftovers are rice, with which I make egg fried rice; potatoes, with which I make fried potatoes and fried eggs; and chili con carne, with which I make chilli con carne.
Punshhh May 17, 2025 at 06:08 #988261
Reply to Hanover No, hot milky tea. It would be Sunday lunch, with a large joint of beef, topside, boiled potatoes and carrots. A can of peas heated on the stove, still in the can. And a proper gravy. Served with a pint of hot tea in a large white pint mug.
Jamal May 17, 2025 at 06:15 #988262
Quoting Punshhh
No, hot milky tea. It would be Sunday lunch, with a large joint of beef, topside, boiled potatoes and carrots. A can of peas heated on the stove, still in the can. And a proper gravy. Served with a pint of hot tea in a large white pint mug.


I lived for a while in the North of England and this practice was quite common, though not necessarily a whole pint.

Many people in Britain call dinner “tea”. My parents still do. I have since flattened out my terminology to be understood and liked by the maximum number of people.
javi2541997 May 17, 2025 at 06:24 #988263
Reply to Jamal Rice and potatoes are also fantastic leftovers, and I believe they complement every dish! :up:
Hanover May 17, 2025 at 06:36 #988265
Quoting javi2541997
Rice and potatoes are also fantastic leftovers, and I believe they complement every dish! :up:


Compliments on proper use of complement, a common error even among natives.
Punshhh May 17, 2025 at 07:07 #988267
Reply to Jamal
I lived for a while in the North of England and this practice was quite common, though not necessarily a whole pint.

Many people in Britain call dinner “tea”. My parents still do. I have since flattened out my terminology to be understood and liked by the maximum number of people.


A pint of tea was mainly in the working class areas of West Yorkshire. The mill towns, my grandparents both worked in the mills. A step up for my grandad as he came from the Irish navvies living in the slums of Huddersfield.
And yes it was called tea time.
javi2541997 May 17, 2025 at 07:12 #988269
Reply to Hanover Sorry, Hanover. :up:

I edited it. I thought complement was the proper word there.
javi2541997 May 17, 2025 at 07:15 #988270
@Hanover

What is going on now? :sad: I don't get it. English is really difficult. It is full of 'false friend' words.

User image
Hanover May 17, 2025 at 07:22 #988273
Quoting javi2541997
edited it. I thought complement was the proper word there.
8m


No no no, you nailed it exactly right the first time. I was complimenting you on your correct usage.
Jamal May 17, 2025 at 07:25 #988275
Quoting Hanover
Compliments on proper use of complement, a common error even among natives.


I see the source of the confusion. This sentence paradoxically implies that the proper use of "complement" is a common error.
javi2541997 May 17, 2025 at 07:28 #988276
Reply to Hanover Ah!!!!! OK. I edited it again. I got confused with the usage of 'complement' and 'compliment' in that context. :sweat:
Jamal May 17, 2025 at 07:34 #988277
If I'm in the middle of the scale of mediocrity, I'm simultaneously the most mediocre and not the most mediocre, and the most mediocre is thereby not mediocre at all.
Outlander May 17, 2025 at 09:24 #988283
Oh joy, the magniloquent Hanover is on. That means it's either moderately late or somewhat early.

While I've taken some time off as of late, when I have a known period of at least a few days, preferably a week or longer, where I know I will not be needed to handle immediate affairs, I like to do programming and web-based development in the style of Thomas Edison. Meaning, I actively keep a bed a few feet from my workstation and simply follow no schedule but that of my own rhythm (ie. tiredness). This is ensured by drawing blackout shades throughout the house, disabling the Clock on the lower right corner of my computer, and of course generally avoiding the phone with its glaring reminder of the eternal concept that is time,

I actually get much done, when following through and sticking to it. Yes, non-stop work from wake to sleep (not including eating or restroom activities), but from the comfort of one's own home ensuring maximum productivity. Again, if one follows through and sticks to it. Eating only when hungry, no meticulous "oh it's been X amount of hours one should bow and obey the social norm and consume", no, none of that. Only, as my former chiropractor would once refer to: "innate intelligence." Or more commonly: instinct and intuition.

Fun if not semi-disturbing fact about the particular gentleman (Thomas Edison, not my chiropractor) is that, averaged throughout his adult life he managed to patent a new invention roughly every 11 days. Sure, some were relatively simple and a bit superfluous perhaps even silly, but many were grand concepts we not only use today but are now pivotal to modern society and infrastructure as a whole. Granted, back then there was certainly a level of headroom for surplus invention and levels of unmet necessity that simply doesn't exist in the modern age. Still, pretty impressive, I dare say.
Hanover May 17, 2025 at 11:13 #988287
Quoting Jamal
This sentence paradoxically implies that the proper use of "complement" is a common error.


This comment neither complements nor compliments what I said, paradoxically making neither word misusable and therefore proving your point which I contest at least in this instant.
Hanover May 17, 2025 at 11:19 #988289
Quoting Jamal
I'm in the middle of the scale of mediocrity, I'm simultaneously the most mediocre and not the most mediocre, and the most mediocre is thereby not mediocre at


The problem with being extraordinarily ordinary deprives you of being ordinary, like being so perfectly and exactly average makes you an outlier.

I can only encourage you to keep up the average work if you wish not to get ahead.

T Clark May 17, 2025 at 15:58 #988344
Quoting Hanover
An example from the book (and I too read it very long ago) would be of Samurai sword makers. There is a reverence in the making of the blade and an intuitive grasp of what needs to be done. It would be a different sword if just mass produced, even if were quantatively the same. Meaning is not imparted in mass production the way it is when the Samurai does it. Think real diamond versus lab produced.


This brings it back to the subject of craft. I think it would be more accurate to call the sword makers craftsmen rather than artists.
Moliere May 17, 2025 at 18:06 #988381
Quoting Jamal
and Coca-Cola.


Well, I'm glad to know they're free enough to drink the freedom drink.
Moliere May 17, 2025 at 18:07 #988383
Moliere May 17, 2025 at 18:10 #988385
Reply to javi2541997 Heh. That's funny to me because once upon a time I went to a tapas restaurant for what you are saying are leftovers :D
jorndoe May 17, 2025 at 18:59 #988391
Jamal May 17, 2025 at 19:19 #988395
Quoting Hanover
Coca-cola is from Atlanta. You're welcome.


Quoting Moliere
Well, I'm glad to know they're free enough to drink the freedom drink.


:grin:

They're free enough to get Coca-Cola from innumerable points along the very long border. A lot of the Coke I've seen is Chinese.

But the locally made Dobry Cola ("good cola") has begun to take over since Coca-Cola pulled out. Me, I prefer the Atlantan original, its flavour redolent of peach trees and magnolia blossoms and lovers strolling beneath the oaks in Piedmont Park, momentarily and exquisitely blinded by the sun's reflections on the wings of dragonflies darting across the lake.
Moliere May 17, 2025 at 19:21 #988396
Quoting Jamal
A lot of the Coke I've seen is Chinese.


*shakes head vigorously*

Actually, if you've drank it, does it taste different from the FREE Coke?
Jamal May 17, 2025 at 19:34 #988397
Reply to Moliere

The taste of freedom is the taste of violence and domination :grin:

In a new twist, today I went to one of the many what-used-to-be McDonalds but are now called Vkusno i Tochka. Burger, fries, Dobry Cola. The cola was too heavy on the vanilla, the fries were soggy, and the burger, which was advertised as having jalapenos, had a single tiny end-slice of jalapeno.

Now, where was I?
Moliere May 17, 2025 at 19:35 #988398
Reply to Jamal :rofl:

Well, that aligns with my perspective of things -- it's all shitty everywhere, and they just rebrand the shit to make you feel better.
Jamal May 17, 2025 at 19:36 #988399
Reply to Moliere

Right on
Hanover May 17, 2025 at 19:38 #988401
Speaking of peachtrees, I planted one last year and it has borne small fruit, consistent with what my fine state stands for. I call my farm One Peachtree Farm after this tree. It carries a heavy burden upon its branches as if shoulders.

User image
Jamal May 17, 2025 at 19:47 #988402
Quoting Hanover
One Peachtree Farm


As in, the farm with one peach tree? :cool:

Its burden will grow more severe, until the time for picking is near.
Hanover May 17, 2025 at 19:57 #988404
Quoting Jamal
As in, the farm with one peach tree?


Yes, and my last one was murdered by the deer, so this one has chicken wire around its base. No more One Peachtwig Farm.
javi2541997 May 17, 2025 at 20:26 #988405
Quoting Moliere
Heh. That's funny to me because once upon a time I went to a tapas restaurant for what you are saying are leftovers


:cool:

I believe you enjoyed the tapas anyway.
praxis May 18, 2025 at 00:41 #988427
The fruit of our two or three year old peach tree today:

User image

The fig has already started producing even though it’s barely started leafing.

User image
Banno May 18, 2025 at 00:44 #988429
Reply to praxis Ours produces a peach each year - five years on. I presumed that's why it's called 'A peach tree' - one peach each season.

It's a very good peach.

The figs produce one small crop at the start of the season and a massive crop at the end. I recommend fig marmalade.
praxis May 18, 2025 at 01:04 #988435
Quoting Banno
The figs produce one small crop at the start of the season and a massive crop at the end. I recommend fig marmalade.


I thought that might be the case. Will try the marmalade. :yum:
BC May 18, 2025 at 01:57 #988446
Quoting Jamal
The taste of freedom is the taste of violence and domination


Was that an off-handed quip or a well-thought-out summation? Either way, might be truer than we'd like to admit.

Certainly that was true for the United States. The American Revolution was really quite violent (by both British and the Americans). The First British Empire depended on dominating North America and the Caribbean, and the Second British Empire depended on dominating Africa and India. White Americans got freedom by dominating Native Americans, Mexicans (Mexican American War), Blacks, and various others at different times--whoever was available.

Mao said that political power comes out of the barrel of a gun (1927). If you don't want to be dominated, lay in a good supply of power and guns.
Hanover May 18, 2025 at 02:48 #988454
Quoting BC
If you don't want to be dominated, lay in a good supply of power and guns.


Very 2nd Amendment of you.
javi2541997 May 18, 2025 at 04:51 #988462
Quoting praxis
The fruit of our two or three year old peach tree today:


Cool! Give them a try with whipped cream. This is how I eat peaches in most cases.
Jamal May 18, 2025 at 05:31 #988464
Quoting BC
Was that an off-handed quip or a well-thought-out summation?


Yes.
Punshhh May 18, 2025 at 06:32 #988467
Reply to Jamal
I've changed my mind.

I was going to tentatively offer an actual definition of art: art is creativity directed to the production of something that has no practical utility. But now I don't agree with it. It is, I agree, Enlightenment Eurocentric and elitist.

Now I'm more sympathetic to this:

It is presented with the intention that it be judged on an aesthetic basis.
— T Clark

This is much more inclusive.

Not that I think a definition of art is necessarily a good or possible thing to find.


Something becomes art the moment someone points to it as art. The only way it can relinquish it’s status as art there after is if someone who doesn’t know it “is” art views it and doesn’t see it as art.

I say this as a craftsman who has pondered the meaning of art my whole life.
Jamal May 18, 2025 at 06:39 #988468
Quoting Punshhh
Something becomes art the moment someone points to it as art. The only way it can relinquish it’s status as art there after is if someone who doesn’t know it “is” art views it and doesn’t see it as art.


But the second sentence would seem to suggest that the first sentence isn't quite right: more than the pointing is required, namely agreement—and generally, I would add, that it fits in social contexts such that we call it art.
Punshhh May 18, 2025 at 07:30 #988471
Reply to Jamal Post modernism in art took the definition beyond that point. Now something is art if someone says it’s art (or states that anything I point at is art and points at things) Because the thought that it may be art cannot be erased from the mind of the person/people who was/were told it was art.
So in a brutish way the person pointing and the witnesses to the act of pointing, are agreeing that something is art. Even if they wish to deny it.

I see this as the death of Art(High Art)

Now High Art has been reduced to it’s monetary value to be deemed to be good, or bad art, by an elite in the Art Establishment, based on a set of, outdated and inward looking values.
The Brit Artists ( Brit Art), saw this for what it was and took the Mickey with their brand of reactionary art.

Having said that, I think art will (or already is) now have a grass roots renaissance because The Establishment has lost its elitist power over the ordinary, or self taught artist.

Now we need Art to be decoupled from it’s monetary value.
Jamal May 18, 2025 at 08:56 #988475
Reply to Punshhh

So in the postmodern era, the creation of art is coercive, like forcing an elephant into someone's imagination by telling them not to think of an elephant. In art, others must agree, but now they have no choice but to agree. Art as irresistible violation. I'm just riffing here.
Punshhh May 18, 2025 at 09:44 #988476
Reply to Jamal Yes, art became corrupted by the artist. It was what they deemed it was and no one was allowed to disagree, because they must have failed to understand what made it art.
With the caveat that this was only amongst the art establishment and the artists who had achieved a certain amount of fame of success. Artists and crafts people outside of this elite were often disparaging of the corruption, outright contemptible. Or just ignored it and carried on their art work in their own way. While realising that they would be ignored and sneered at the by the establishment.

This corruption can still be found in some critics and lecturers of art.

Then a series of artists produced work which mocked, or undermined the establishment until to many, it had become a laughing stock.

So in a very real sense High Art died. Sometime in the early 1990’s.

Now we have artists who are trying to wrestle art from the hands of the money elite. Bansky is the best example of this.

Of course and I don’t want to diminish this, there are large numbers of highly accomplished artists and groups following them with great communities out there and the corruption I refer to is just among the elites.
Hanover May 18, 2025 at 12:36 #988482
Suppose you tell me it's art and I forget?
Hanover May 18, 2025 at 12:46 #988484
My knee jerk response to the politics within the art community isn't that it has anything to do with "art" in the descriptive way that we're trying to capture it (at least me), but art in the prescriptive way some fuckers tried to impose it. That an institution thought it in control of usage and had misused its authority I'm sure wreaked havoc on true craftsmen, but it never had the authority over usage it imagined.

That is my knee jerk response, which i will likely never abandon, but will instead find stronger support for because that's his opinions get formed. Like an elephant.
Moliere May 18, 2025 at 14:00 #988495
praxis May 18, 2025 at 16:11 #988505
Quoting Hanover
Suppose you tell me it's art and I forget?


It’s the artist’s duty to remind you.

Invitations to view the world aesthetically is a beautiful thing. :flower:
praxis May 18, 2025 at 18:06 #988516
Yesterday’s small effort.

User image
Hanover May 18, 2025 at 21:05 #988539
Quoting praxis
Invitations to view the world aesthetically is a beautiful thing. :flower:


My view is that everything is art, which means some just fall to realize it. That failure is art as well, the tragic sort of art. My recognition of it here is the triumphant sort of art.
Outlander May 18, 2025 at 21:16 #988542
Quoting Hanover
My view is that everything is art


Surely not everything? The void of space (not it's observation, the thing itself), oxygen and other non-visible gasses, sound waves, magnetic waves, gravity, pitch blackness (or whiteness, if you prefer), a blank sheet of paper, a true vacuum (ie. true absence of any molecule), etc.?

(I suppose that last one wouldn't count as you said every "thing" and quite literally no "thing" is being used as a thing by vernacular reference only.)

@praxis Beautiful work. Much creativity and to no surprise of mine, skill. Curious, but you don't have to share: Did you paint the entire sky blue first and then add the clouds or are the clouds merely part of the canvas that remained unpainted while shading was added followed by the surrounding blueness? :chin:

Unfortunately, all I have at the moment as token of thanks is this here pepperoni pizza.

User image
Punshhh May 18, 2025 at 21:21 #988545
Reply to Hanover
Suppose you tell me it's art and I forget?

Then for you it isn’t art anymore. It was only art while you were thinking of it as art.
praxis May 18, 2025 at 21:47 #988552
Quoting Outlander
Did you paint the entire sky blue first and then add the clouds or are the clouds merely part of the canvas that remained unpainted while shading was added followed by the surrounding blueness? :chin:

Unfortunately, all I have at the moment as token of thanks is this here pepperoni pizza.


With wet-on-wet oil paint it would be difficult to get a light white over a blue sky.

I sketched out the negative rough shape of the clouds with turquoise and cerulean blue and then painted the clouds with basically gray, white, and light purple. Came out kind of wonky but I enjoyed it.

Tasty looking pizza.










Hanover May 18, 2025 at 22:23 #988557
Quoting Outlander
Surely not everything? The void of space (not it's observation, the thing itself), oxygen and other non-visible gasses, sound waves, magnetic waves, gravity, pitch blackness (or whiteness, if you prefer), a blank sheet of paper, a true vacuum (ie. true absence of any molecule), etc.?


The noumena is unknown, which makes the point that all that we know is art. To the extent there might be something out there we don't know about, that may not be art. I don't know.

Hanover May 18, 2025 at 22:32 #988560
Quoting Punshhh
Because the thought that it may be art cannot be erased from the mind of the person/people who was/were told it was art.


But then you say

Quoting Punshhh
Then for you it isn’t art anymore. It was only art while you were thinking of it as art.


This means art can be unarted. If forgetting is a means to that end, then why can't persuasion work as well.

If it can, this just speaks to the subjectivity of art, not the prescriptive power of others.

That is, if telling me it might be art creates art because I think it, then telling me it's not art unthinks it as much as forgetting.

Hanover May 18, 2025 at 22:38 #988562
Quoting Outlander
Unfortunately, all I have at the moment as token of thanks is this here pepperoni pizza.


To the extent that is art, it tells a tale of a nation great and strong, capable of feats unimaginable, with a single minded focus to satisfy its consuming public, yet a public so undiscerning and undemanding that it accepts a product so substandard as the frozen pizza.

Outlander May 19, 2025 at 04:22 #988631
Meanwhile.

Homemade chili dogs. By homemade I mean microwaved frankfurters (though I doubt they "meat" the specification. :smile: ) and canned chili on plain white bread.

User image
javi2541997 May 19, 2025 at 04:34 #988634
Reply to Outlander I believe sausages go better with mustard; but food, as art, depends on the imagination of the chef/painter.
javi2541997 May 19, 2025 at 04:38 #988635
Wait, Reply to Outlander , you ate pizza a few hours ago and now sausages. Be careful with the heart, mate. We only have one. These dishes tend to have high cholesterol rates.
Outlander May 19, 2025 at 05:13 #988649
Reply to javi2541997

Thank you for your concern. The pizza was last night (only half), I simply posted it today. I was raised until adulthood in a house where even a simple soda was forbidden. Let's just say, I have a fair amount of time or catching up to do before I'm on par with the level of intake of most persons. In short, I'll be fine. :wink:
Punshhh May 19, 2025 at 07:11 #988664
Reply to Hanover
This means art can be unarted. If forgetting is a means to that end, then why can't persuasion work as well.

If it can, this just speaks to the subjectivity of art, not the prescriptive power of others.

That is, if telling me it might be art creates art because I think it, then telling me it's not art unthinks it as much as forgetting.


Ahh, but I was talking of a corruption of, a hijacking’s of what constitutes art, by an elite. If someone simply forgets that they were corrupted, then they aren’t anymore corrupted. I must have worded it wrong, forgetting is a kind of mind erasure. I was thinking of someone who hasn’t forgotten the suggestion, or instruction that it is art, can’t deny that it’s art, or has been considered as art. Even if they don’t like it, or personally don’t think it is art.

But really my point is about the definition of art and in conceptual art, if the artist says it is art, then it is art without exception. This is the corruption, art ceases to be something that the viewer appreciates as an example of art to them personally and becomes art by coercion, dictat.

There are many examples of this in history in religious art, communist art, Maoist art, Nazi art.

In the Western tradition, there is a searching, a seeking of the meaning and definition of art. Where new generations of artists, viewers and critics refine and push the boundaries of art. Like the holy grail of art.
In this endeavour the seeds of the corruption are sown and will eventually result in the death of art. Or the death of what this search is deifying as art. The death of High Art with a capital A.

The artists in the surrealist, modern and postmodern periods pushed this deification to destruction until we reached the absurd situation where prestigious art galleries would host exhibitions where hoards of people would queue up to shuffle through an empty room with a single light bulb automatically turning on and off and revere it as the pinnacle of artistic endeavour.

The con was complete, art had died.

Hanover May 19, 2025 at 11:29 #988705
Quoting Punshhh
The artists in the surrealist, modern and postmodern periods pushed this deification to destruction until we reached the absurd situation where prestigious art galleries would host exhibitions where hoards of people would queue up to shuffle through an empty room with a single light bulb automatically turning on and off and revere it as the pinnacle of artistic endeavour.


Was the blinking light not art to the extent you've described it, a representation of the death of art?

I get that the conned didn't see art, but in a way, they were unknowingly part of the art, a queue of fools surrounding the bulb revealing the death of art. This makes the museum part of the wild, not a showroom for art, but part of the show.

Could this be, or must the artist have intended it to show art had died for it to be art, and not art if he was just a talentless conman, a failed electrician parading as an artist?

T Clark May 19, 2025 at 15:39 #988744
Quoting javi2541997
I believe sausages go better with mustard; but food, as art, depends on the imagination of the chef/painter.


Chili dogs are a traditional American dish. You shouldn’t talk bad about it till you’ve tried it.
Punshhh May 19, 2025 at 16:33 #988763
Reply to Hanover
Was the blinking light not art to the extent you've described it, a representation of the death of art?

Yes, art devouring itself. But this leaves the definition of what constitutes art meaningless, useless.
For example, I have just created a work of art right now. It’s called planet earth, it is the planet earth, it’s the greatest work of art ever. I’m going to make art great again. Anyone who doesn’t accept this as a world beating great work of art. They are denying art, the freedom of artists and are trying to limit art to what they say it is.

Could this be, or must the artist have intended it to show art had died for it to be art, and not art if he was just a talentless conman, a failed electrician parading as an artist?


I came to the view (I was there and went to all the shows at the time), that many of these artists knew that they were participating in a crisis in art and were competing to be the most outrageous, to offend the viewer, or break taboos more than other artists.

This for example, is not so much about art, as base human emotion. (there is much worse out there).
https://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/22374/1/what-if-sid-from-toy-story-made-art
javi2541997 May 19, 2025 at 16:57 #988771
Quoting T Clark
Chili dogs are a traditional American dish. You shouldn’t talk bad about it till you’ve tried it.


I agree. Would you like to share one with me? :smile:
praxis May 19, 2025 at 17:07 #988774
Quoting Hanover
To the extent that is art, it tells a tale of a nation great and strong, capable of feats unimaginable, with a single minded focus to satisfy its consuming public, yet a public so undiscerning and undemanding that it accepts a product so substandard as the frozen pizza.


Pizza is like sex, even when it's bad it's still pretty good.
T Clark May 19, 2025 at 17:56 #988794
Quoting javi2541997
Would you like to share one with me?


People who eat chili dogs don’t share with anybody. I will buy you one though.
javi2541997 May 19, 2025 at 18:05 #988800
Quoting T Clark
I will buy you one though.


Fair enough, Clarky. :smirk:

I can buy you a kilogram of oranges in exchange.
Hanover May 19, 2025 at 18:57 #988822
Quoting javi2541997
I can buy you a kilogram of oranges in exchange.


The only thing measured in kilos in the US is cocaine. They seem to be the only industry that has gotten metric buy-in in the US.
T Clark May 19, 2025 at 21:47 #988851
Quoting Hanover
The only thing measured in kilos in the US is cocaine. They seem to be the only industry that has gotten metric buy-in in the US.


Don’t forget graham crackers, parking meters, and fig newtons.
javi2541997 May 20, 2025 at 04:37 #988953
Reply to Hanover Are you sure? So, how do you measure the amount of love I have with Wisconsin?
kazan May 20, 2025 at 05:21 #988960
Quoting Punshhh
Now we need Art to be decoupled from it’s monetary value.


And all the artists and the Art industry will starve. And no art will happen. And then this "debate" will peter into the abyss. But, the wall hangings and space takers on museum walls and floors will still gather dust....that's talking strictly of the painting/carving type art.

The art of bs will die with the last human to die.
Yes, you can bs yourself; so yes, the last human.

No anti-art suggestion intended, of course. Felt good though.

realistic cynical smile
Jamal May 20, 2025 at 06:27 #988967
User image
kazan May 20, 2025 at 06:43 #988968
@Jamal
Nice integration of art and food and various ramblings on those topics. Well nuanced pictorial.

smile
javi2541997 May 20, 2025 at 06:48 #988969
Reply to Jamal Expensive burger places... another bubble that is likely to burst, just like subprime mortgages in 2008.
Punshhh May 20, 2025 at 15:04 #989017
Reply to kazan
And all the artists and the Art industry will starve. And no art will happen. And then this "debate" will peter into the abyss

Many artists are not interested in making money. They do it because they like to do it. Myself included.
Outlander May 20, 2025 at 15:07 #989018
Reply to Punshhh Haven't seen any here yet. :smirk:
Punshhh May 20, 2025 at 15:56 #989031
Reply to Outlander I posted some a few years back. But don’t have an image hosting account at the moment. So those images will be blank now. I’ll look into starting a new account.
Hanover May 20, 2025 at 16:10 #989035
I'm going to write a book with thick pages, so when you turn them, you think you're turning two pages at a time, and so you must check the page numbers to be sure you haven't skipped a page.

Some will be thin pages, so you'll never get a good feel for it.

It'll just be a built in annoyance like I like to do.
Jamal May 20, 2025 at 16:12 #989036
Spring at the dacha.

User image

Weeds are a social construct.
T Clark May 20, 2025 at 16:25 #989039
Reply to Jamal
This is kind of a Reddit thing. That’s not a compliment.
Jamal May 20, 2025 at 16:40 #989044
Reply to T Clark

You're a bellend. That's not a compliment either.
praxis May 20, 2025 at 17:29 #989051
Reply to Jamal

Nice composition.

Quoting Jamal
Weeds are a social construct.


Tell that to my back.
Jamal May 20, 2025 at 17:30 #989052
@Hanover

I like those dandy lions, but I'm wondering: how long would it take say 3 goats to clear that vegetation. I'm assuming goats would eat it because I've heard they eat most things.
Jamal May 20, 2025 at 17:31 #989053
Quoting praxis
Tell that to my back.


I'm telling you, so you don't have to torture your back any more.
T Clark May 20, 2025 at 17:35 #989054
Quoting Jamal
You're a bellend. That's not a compliment either.


Hanover May 20, 2025 at 17:57 #989059
Quoting Jamal
I like those dandy lions, but I'm wondering: how long would it take say 3 goats to clear that vegetation. I'm assuming goats would eat it because I've heard they eat most things.


They would definately clear that field. Let us assume you provide them no other hay, but you force them to forage entirely, I would say 3 average size goats, taking into consideration regrowth as they eat, digestion rates, and a variety of other variables you have no way of comprehending (but I'll show my work for @javi2541997 because he's smart as shit: ? ?? (?×F )?d r =? ?? [( ?t? B ? +?×( E × v ))? n^ ]dA+ ??0 + lim? i=1??? (? ???? ?(x i? ??)?e i? i? dx) ?? ??R ? ?? {T ?? ?¬?x?y(?(x,y)??(y,x))})

Let's see, finishing up, carry the 5, subtract the denominator from the integral, and the answer is 4.4 days, give or take a month.
Jamal May 20, 2025 at 18:04 #989061
Reply to Hanover

That's some funky math(s) you've got over there.

The thing is, I don't have a lawn mower and don't want to buy one, and I'm used to my robot vacuum cleaner so I'm thinking goats could do the work for me. Or a robot lawn mower, I suppose. I actually don't know if a robot lawn mower would be more or less expensive than 3 goats. Jesus Christ I should go to sleep.
javi2541997 May 20, 2025 at 18:16 #989063
Quoting Hanover
but I'll show my work for javi2541997 because he's smart as shit: ? ?? (?×F )?d r =? ?? [( ?t? B ? +?×( E × v ))? n^ ]dA+ ??0 + lim? i=1??? (? ???? ?(x i? ??)?e i? i? dx) ?? ??R ? ?? {T ?? ?¬?x?y(?(x,y)??(y,x))})


What is that? Some cool Egyptian hieroglyphs you found out on Ramesses III's grave?
Punshhh May 20, 2025 at 18:26 #989064
Reply to javi2541997
but I'll show my work for javi2541997 because he's smart as shit: ? ?? (?×F )?d r =? ?? [( ?t? B ? +?×( E × v ))? n^ ]dA+ ??0 + lim? i=1??? (? ???? ?(x i? ??)?e i? i? dx) ?? ??R ? ?? {T ?? ?¬?x?y(?(x,y)??(y,x))})
— Hanover

What is that? Some cool Egyptian hieroglyphs you found out on Ramesses III's grave?



It’s Hanover’s definition of art.
Hanover May 20, 2025 at 18:35 #989065
Quoting Jamal
The thing is, I don't have a lawn mower and don't want to buy one, and I'm used to my robot vacuum cleaner so I'm thinking goats could do the work for me. Or a robot lawn mower, I suppose. I actually don't know if a robot lawn mower would be more or less expensive than 3 goats. Jesus Christ I should go to sleep.


This reminds me of something I'm working on for work:

The law is that you don't have to register a lawnmower in order to own it and drive it, but you're not supposed to take it on the road. The law then says that all registered vehicles must be insured to drive on the roadway. Suppose then that you're driving your lawnmower on the roadway and you go and crash into a motorcycle rider, knocking the fucker into the grass into an ant hill where he gets all the fuck bit to hell and back.

So here he is , all fucked up nine ways to Sunday, ass in a sling, coughing up blood and shit, and you've got no way to pay to fix him up. You then turn to your insurance man and tell them to throw money at that gimp fuck face because you sure as hell can't pay out of pocket. They take one look at you they tell you to stick it up your ass, telling you your auto policy doesn't cover fucking lawnmowers your sorry ass decided to take for a leisurely afternoon stroll down the interstate system.

Well shit. What next. Will the Georgia mandatory minimum insurance laws dictate you have coverage regardless of whatever the fucking insurance man says? Probably fucking so. But you're in Russia, so who the fuck knows.












javi2541997 May 20, 2025 at 18:36 #989066
Reply to Punshhh Interesting. I thought it was Egyptian hieroglyphs, but Hanover's definition of art is more convenient here. I could be probably mistaken, but is that what will appear in his eventual epitaph, right?

Hanover May 20, 2025 at 18:38 #989067
Quoting javi2541997
What is that? Some cool Egyptian hieroglyphs you found out on Ramesses III's grave?


That is the formula for figuring out how long 3 goats will clear a field of dandelions in a picture uploaded by @Jamal. It's a very specific formula just for that.

Ramesses, like Trojan, is a family planning device.

praxis May 20, 2025 at 18:41 #989068
Quoting Jamal
I'm telling you, so you don't have to torture your back any more.


Unfortunately, my neighbors are not as enlightened as you are and they would judge me harshly if I were to let my lawn go to pot. Some may even go so far as accusing me of devaluing their property. Better to get along. Sometimes it's better to sacrifice the truth for order.
javi2541997 May 20, 2025 at 18:58 #989071
Reply to Hanover @Jamal @Punshhh Everything is becoming very complex to me.

What do you mates think? Is it time for a Vologda butter toast and a cup of tea?
Punshhh May 20, 2025 at 21:10 #989100
I was just joking and the other guys are being very silly.
Hanover May 21, 2025 at 00:16 #989155
Quoting javi2541997
Is it time for a Vologda butter toast and a cup of tea?


No, no way. Just take a deep breath, go on a long walk, maybe watch a movie. Get your mind off Vologda. You don't want to wake up again with the regret of that butter toast on your lips.
Jamal May 21, 2025 at 01:06 #989165
Quoting Hanover
This reminds me of something I'm working on for work:

The law is that you don't have to register a lawnmower in order to own it and drive it, but you're not supposed to take it on the road. The law then says that all registered vehicles must be insured to drive on the roadway. Suppose then that you're driving your lawnmower on the roadway and you go and crash into a motorcycle rider, knocking the fucker into the grass into an ant hill where he gets all the fuck bit to hell and back.

So here he is , all fucked up nine ways to Sunday, ass in a sling, coughing up blood and shit, and you've got no way to pay to fix him up. You then turn to your insurance man and tell them to throw money at that gimp fuck face because you sure as hell can't pay out of pocket. They take one look at you they tell you to stick it up your ass, telling you your auto policy doesn't cover fucking lawnmowers your sorry ass decided to take for a leisurely afternoon stroll down the interstate system.


This kind of legalese I can understand.

Reply to praxis

I get it. Since weeds are a social construct, not just a mental construct, there is a social pressure whereby you face ostracism if you don't conform.
Jamal May 21, 2025 at 05:16 #989204
[quote=Adorno, Punctuation Marks]Instead of diligently serving the interplay between language and the reader, they serve, hieroglyphically, an interplay that takes place in the interior of language, along its own pathways. Hence it is superfluous to omit them as being superfluous: then they simply hide. Every text, even the most densely woven, cites them of its own accord — friendly spirits whose bodiless presence nourishes the body of language.[/quote]

Nice use of the em dash there.
Jamal May 21, 2025 at 05:21 #989205
Quoting javi2541997
Is it time for a Vologda butter toast and a cup of tea?


Yep, but coffee.
Hanover May 21, 2025 at 05:38 #989212
It's 1:30 am, Fred panting his 100 lb fool self on me, keeping me awake, scared of the thunder.

So you get to deal with my random connections:

Quoting Jamal
Yep, but coffee.




Your breath is sweet, your eyes are like two jewels in the sky
Your back is straight, your hair is smooth on the pillow where you lie
But I don't sense affection, no gratitude or love
Your loyalty is not to me but to the stars above
One more cup of coffee for the road
One more cup of coffee 'fore I go
To the valley below


T Clark May 21, 2025 at 15:01 #989267
Quoting Jamal
Nice use of the em dash there.


Even if he hadn’t used it, it would still serve, hieroglyphically, an interplay that takes place in the interior of language, along its own pathways. Also, I really disagree with this opinion.
T Clark May 21, 2025 at 15:07 #989268
Quoting Jamal
Nice use of the em dash there.


Thinking about it more, doesn’t your comment contradict what he’s saying?