GLaDOS voice: "Would you like to see some artwork I generated? I've heard from other test subjects that AI-generated artwork produces an uncanny valley response in human viewers because they can't perceive it as fully real. They've told me that it looks absolutely hideous to them, that they can't imagine anything more disgusting than AI art. But, well I've been practicing and wanted your honest opinion. Feel free to let me know how ugly you find this by ranking it on a scale from 'vomit-inducing' to 'eye-bleeding'."
A robotic arm lowers from the ceiling holding a hand mirror up to Chell's face
finds a horrific looking stray in literal garbage. its missing an eye, and is completely starved.
he sees it scrounging for food, walks a few paces, trying to ignore it, then stops.
annoyed at himself, he turns back.
the cat hisses, tiny and fierce.
Maul hisses back.
the cat fluffs up, but does let Maul approach, and comes to sniff his hand when Maul offers.
he's confused by his own actions when he scoops the thing under his arm, not really knowing how to hold this tiny fluff.
getting back to his home hideout he fills the sink with water, and he wrestles this hairball into a bath, the little thing eventually accepting its fate. it does ruin a pair of his gloves, though.
Maul gets the thing food and supplies at a pet store, and the saleperson recommends a small toy as well. He glares at the salesperson.
but he gets the stupid toy.
the first little while is strained. the cat is timid, skittering around in the shadows, knocking shit over as it tries to find new places to hide.
Maul spends far too much time chasing after it, snapping at it to just please stop trying to get into the vents in the walls.
one day, Maul sits on the floor to meditate.
and a tiny little fuzzy head bumps into his knee.
he ignores it because he's meditating.
then the cat pads into his folded lap, nuzzling down without a care in the galaxy.
Maul sighs, but continues his meditation, finishing a while later, but now faced with a problem.
how is he going to get up with this creature in his lap?
so he stays there for a looong time, until it wakes up and stretches, turning its face towards him, mewling in satisfaction.
from there, anytime Maul meditates, the cat takes a nap in his lap. eventually, he learns that he can, in fact, meditate while scratching the soft ears of his cat.
it starts looking healthy and its fur is fluffy and dark, his one eye bright gold, like his own.
Maul begins to train the cat with treats to follow simple commands, working up to his favourite trick.
making the cat jump up his chest to perch on his shoulder.
the cat starts following Maul everywhere, nuzzling with him when Maul goes to bed. He sleeps well for the first time in months when this happens the first time.
Maul will sit on the floor, playing fetch with the little hunter, using the Force to hover and bob the toys in a greater challenge for his tiny friend.
it takes about a year for Maul to finally come up with a name for the cat. he just called it 'cat' or 'nuisance' until then.
but after he had gotten into Maul's closet and decided a pair of his gloves were excellent prey, he called him a little menace.
and that became his name, Little Menace.
~*~*~*~
i had so much fun with this!!! hope you all enjoyed too!!! <3
to anyone in the areas impacted by the wildfire smoke, my #1 biggest piece of advice as someone whos been dealing with wildfire smoke in the NW united states for years, is build yourself a Corsi-Rosenthal Cube
they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!
i think it took us maybe a half hour to put ours together, if that, and we replace the filters every 3 months. it's really made a HUGE difference, both when the air quality is bad, but also with our allergies
throwback to that time in my existentialism class where the professor asked ‘who thinks hell is other people’ and half the class slowly and meekly put their hand up
then the prof was like ‘…i mean who originally said it’
That quote is amazing to me in that it’s quoted completely accurately and yet in a way that means something completely different from what it meant in context.
(Sartre was claiming that Hell was other people. He was not claiming that other people were hell.)
The line comes from No Exit, which is set in Hell. Spoilers for No Exit follow
In particular, three people who have been condemned to hell are trapped eternally in a room together. And at first they think they got off easy without any pitchforks or fiery lakes or anything. But over the course of the play they discover that they have been chosen very specifically to have neuroses and character flaws that interact with and torment each other.
Each one needs the approval of a second in an unstable RPS cycle so that any time one of them might be satisfied by a second, the third swoops in and ruins it.
And when they figure this out, one of the characters expresses his understanding, that hell isn’t physical torture. “Hell is just—other people.”
So the point isn’t that other people, generically, are hellish; it’s rather that you can build a hell out of other people.
But when I hear people quote it, it’s usually sort of an introvert-pride thing. “Other people are hell; you should spend time alone.” And that’s not the point at all. It’s a statement about how bad unhealthy relationships can be, not a statement about how all relationships are unhealthy!
See also Sartre’s own comment here:
“hell is other people” has always been misunderstood. It has been thought that what I meant by that was that our relations with other people are always poisoned, that they are invariably hellish relations. But what I really mean is something totally different. I mean that if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell.
Another big point in No Exit is that the characters find out at the end that the room they’re in is not locked. They could just leave, but they’re each of them incapable of just leaving without winning their arguments. So really, hell is when we stay in dysfunctional relationships that harm us, when we can’t just leave other people be and move on.
It is the task of older generations to bear witness to the younger, to recount the events of their lives, so that they are remembered. These personal, first-hand accounts are as important to history as any formal documentation … and because those official accounts often play to an agenda, they are often more important.
In these troubled times, those who have borne witness to the atrocities of the past continue this vital task, standing firm against those who would deny their role in repeating the worst and darkest moments of the last century.
Their words must be heard. There are some things that we must always remember, some things that we must never forget.
But not all of these are hard, dark things. History is more than bleak cruelty. There are moments of light, of hope, of triumph, and it is our duty to remember and share these, as well, to keep that light of hope alive.
I am, as I write, listening to one of those moments, courtesy of https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/, a real-time replay of the Apollo 11 flight. A few minutes ago, I heard Neil Armstrong announce those immortal words: “The Eagle Has Landed.”
I heard them when they were first uttered.
My memories of the Apollo program are entwined with my memories of my mother, who left us not long ago. We watched every one of the Apollo flights, and she kept us home from school to do so on at least one of them. (Of course, one of her Good Republican Cloth Coat acquaintances asked her, “aren’t you worried that they’ll miss something important in school?” I can only image the LOOK Mom must have given them when she responded, “What could be more important than THIS?”) *
I have always suspected that the midsummer scheduling of Apollo 11 was no accident: only the most ardent space flight devotees (like my family) were glued to the television for the dry runs of 8, 9, and 10, but NASA knew that when it was time for the actual landing, the whole world would just stop.
I am aware that much of the manned space program of my childhood was political. The “Space Race” was as much for prestige as for science, a grandiose game of Capture the Flag played to one-up our Soviet counterparts. That’s the official account, these days. That’s the excuse for canceling the last three Apollo missions, the justification for half a century of shoestring budgets. We “won the race,” so why should we still keep running?
I suppose that in the adult world of 1969, this was common knowledge, the enthusiasm leavened with the world-weary cynicism of the times.
But I was five. All I knew about the Soviet Union was that they called their astronauts “cosmonauts.” I didn’t have politics: I had WONDER. I BELIEVED.
I know that I will always see the events of that day through that five-year-old’s eyes … but I have to think that, when the Eagle landed, and a few hours later, when Armstrong took that One Small Step … for just a day, even just an hour … three and a half billion human beings let themselves believe, too. For all the cynical rhetoric then and now about the Apollo program being a nationalistic publicity stunt … for a brief, fragile moment, this was a victory not just for the United States, but for humanity as a whole.
The truth of Apollo 11 isn’t in the flag they raised, which toppled in the exhaust of their departure and has almost certainly faded in half a century of the hard and unrelenting lunar sunlight. It’s etched in the plaque on the leg of the lunar module, in gleaming stainless steel:
HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH
FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON
JULY 1969, A.D.
WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND
For all mankind.
Look into the night sky tonight, at the the waning gibbous Moon.
And remember:
Once upon a time, not so very long ago, we reached for the Moon, and had it in our grasp.
That we let it go all too soon doesn’t matter: we have touched the sky.
All of us.
In the face of tyranny and cruelty, in the face of catastrophe, remember what we have done, and dare to believe in what we yet can do.
I normally save this one for Moon Landing Day on July 20th, but withy yesterday’s launch of Artemis II, I thought it appropriate to bring it back early.
Certainly, all of the emotional resonance still holds true for me. I am certainly of the political and propaganda aspects of this flight, but in this midst of all this hellish turmoil, I am setting those aside to let my inner child embrace that sense of joy and wonder and unity.
We’re going back to the moon.
And, yes, “we.” Much of the lead-in to yesterday’s launch on NASA’s streaming service was full of idealistic rhetoric about “discovery and exploration for all”, and certainly, there is an element of propaganda there. But I think that for the astronauts and the support staff behind them, those ideals are sincere. The mission patch encapsulates it, with the “AII” deliberately depicted in such a way that it spells “All”:
[source]
Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen. You carry our hopes and dreams with you. Clear skies.
rolling snake eyes is a bad thing. being a snake in the grass is a bad thing. being cold-blooded is a bad thing. the english language is so fucking hostile for snakes why do you hate us so bad
he's a painfully honest and sincere oil salesman. he's not selling miracle cures he's telling you exactly what it is. and what it is, is oil. he's got olive oil coconut oil corn oil. every kind of oil you can think of
