Open Skies

I'm a computer scientist who makes mathematicians say they hate math. I work on language theoretic security, hpc, and ergonomics. Ask me about my research!

[ms-demeanor]

Performance art is good and listening to people who don't understand art talk about performance art is a unique type of torture.

[ms-demeanor]

Which is probably a thought that could be the core of a pretty fun, masturbatory piece of performance art.

[ms-demeanor]

Oh. Oh actually. Actually.

[ms-demeanor]

Okay, so the name of the piece is "It's what you make of it" and you have a setup that's a cross between a zoltar fortune-teller machine and a crank penny press. The room the piece is performed in has a warning about recording the performance and cautions the viewer to only interact with the piece of they consent to being recorded and photographed.

The artist is in the box, made up as a marionette and the viewer can use pulleys and switches to position the artist's limbs and to change the background and lighting of the box and can type a short prompt for the artist to repeat and act out verbatim.

The viewer has to drop a token (provided as part of the piece) into a coin slot and work a crank to complete the prompt. While the artist is acting out the prompt, the prompt is printed on a photo strip that includes a picture of the prompter (taken by a hidden webcam on the booth). One copy of the prompt and photo is spit out along with the cranked token (which has the phrase "it's what you make of it" and an image of a clown pressed into it) for the viewer to keep, one copy of the prompt and photo is spit out inside the booth where the artist can collect it after completing the prompt.

What the artist is going to do with the photo strip is not explained, the artist doesn't speak or move except as a response to a prompt.

[ms-demeanor]

People will prompt the artist to say "this is stupid." People will prompt the artist say explicit phrases, or to swear incessantly. People will prompt the artist to say slurs.

And they will walk away with their prompt attributed to them with their photo and a coin they used their energy to mint into a reminder that the art is what they made of it. And their creation is documented in the hands of the artist as well. What did they put into the world? What did they decide to say when they had a chance to say anything? What were they comfortable saying before they realized that someone would quote them on it? What did they make of it, and how would they feel if their photo was attached to their prompt in a book or video or somewhere that people might see it?

How did they approach the piece? How would they approach it a second time?

[ms-demeanor]

Also the artist goes hog fucking wild on the prompts. They're acted out *loudly* and melodramatically with as much emotion as the artist can put into the performance.

And whenever the machine is not in motion the artist is still and vacant, but the performance of the prompt involves as much eye contact and emoting as possible.

[leafstem]

*while sewing*: you are a fabric. you can stay a fabric. you do not yearn to return to being string.

[batbetbitbotbut]

*while spinning*: you are a thread. you can stay a thread. you do not yarn to return to being fluff.

[strikeslip]

*while embroidering*: you are a thread on a needle. you can just exist as thread on a needle. you do knot yearn to become a tangle.

[mawofthemagnetar]

*while turning wood* you are timber on a lathe. You can stay as timber on a lathe. You do not yearn to become a live hand grenade.

[bugbbear]

*while adding chemicals to a reaction* you are a stable substance. you are neither too hot nor too agitated. you do not yearn to explode violently and poison everyone in the building.

[cyclicalaberration]

*Whilst throwing pottery* You are a wonderful mug. You can stay as a wonderful mug with walls. You do not yearn to return to a horrible lump of dirt.

[desertherm1t]

*while doing digital art* you are a paint bucket tool. you will fill only inside these lines. you do not yearn to turn the entire canvas into your color

[the-shade-system]

@stars-says-fuck

[segamascott]

[victusinveritas]

It's almost like something happened in 2020-now that is causing these problems.

[toroidalearthtruther]

there seems to be a fundamental disagreement between microwave oven manufacturers and the producers of microwave meals over whether the customer should know the wattage of their microwave or if such details should be abstracted away from them

[toroidalearthtruther]

the microwave rice demands 800 watts of power for 2 minutes, but all the microwave can offer me three settings: one low, one high, and one somewhere in the middle. I turn it to the one in the middle as I happen to know 800W is the average power of most microwaves. the light comes on and the bag of rice starts slowly turning, but rather than hearing the usual rumble of the microwave, I instead start hearing short snippets of conversation - words snatched from the ether. the lights flicker and a chill runs up my spine. the voices remind me of those "spirit boxes" ghost hunters use. I double check the setting on the microwave. "ah," I say, remembering that I had set it to medium,

[hungwy]

One of the best stories humanity ever produced was a draft of a rewrite of the Epic of Gilgamesh written by a Ecuadorian poet in 1935. It was tossed into a fireplace by an angry boy and lost forever. Another of humanity's best was told 65,000 years ago and was overheard by a small tribe of embarked Neanderthals boating down a river in what is now northern Georgia. A short woman at the bank scrubbed a wooden idol in the water and sang an ancient tale in an unknown language. These two are eclipsed by everything produced by two brothers at the coast of what is now Cameroon between 503 BC and 490 BC, which they shared with some family and friends, and were beloved by everyone except a sour uncle.

[dyke-parade]

rocky should be naked: an anthropological treatise

something maybe controversial that has been driving me BONKERS since the project hail mary book first came out that i finally just had to dig into my anthropology MA to bitch about:

it's fucking batshit that andy weir wrote the eridians as wearing clothes. there is no reason that eridians would ever develop something akin to human clothing.

like. do you know how long humans (not just hairy early hominin relatives of our, but straight-up anatomically modern homo sapiens) were rocking nothing but our birthday suits? LIKE NINETY THOUSAND FUCKING YEARS. HUMANS HAVE BEEN NAKED ALMOST THE WHOLE TIME WE'VE BEEN HUMANS, and we're famously leaky hairless apes, not hard-carapaced crab spiders with piston joints who live in boiling ammonia.

listen to me. the first hairless hominin was homo erectus, about 1.6mya. naked. anatomically modern humans like us evolved 350-270,000 years ago. also naked. when do we first have solid evidence for consistent human use of clothing (bc it's when the clothing lice genome evolves to diverge from the head lice genome lol)? only 170,000-83,000 years ago. before that? BUCKASS NAKED. and even when we did start using clothing? well, as we know from excellent textile archeologists such as elizabeth wayland barber, a LOT of early human clothing was likely more decorative than functional – i.e. the string skirts that you see on some of the 'venus figures' from the upper paleolithic, which were solely decorative but would NOT do anything for warmth.

now consider eridians, whose bodies are functionally impenetrable unless they're actively eating (which is a private activity anyhow), who are carnivores (thus having no need to cultivate plants – aka the source of most textiles – like humans do), who live on a planet with no sun exposure (so probably nothing like earth plants anyways) and no fucking seasons (no need for rain/snow protection!), who evolved to exist ONLY in very specific & stable temperature ranges (like most life on erid, per andy weir), who have five fucking hands to hold things, are famously so good at multitasking that doing just one activity sucks for them, and CANNOT FUCKING SEE!!!

so where the FUCK is eridians' evolutionary or social impetus to develop ANYTHING akin to clothing supposedly coming from? N O W H E R E. you heard me.

decoration like the celebration jewelry, absolutely – though notice that was clearly designed for its auditory qualities and ability to show up on sonar, not anything approaching the level of coverage that human clothing has. rocky's engineering lederhosen (leather! bc again, carnivores!) as a (evolutionarily speaking) modern development to help hold tools, yeah, totally. carapace carvings, 100%.

BUT THERE IS NO FUCKING REASON FOR THAT ROCK TO WEAR A SHIRT. in fact, it's way the fuck weirder that he DOES wear a shirt in the book! the movie was completely right to have a buckass naked rocky, there is no goddamn reason eridians would ever develop clothing, and the idea of a five-legged spider rock trying to put on a sleeved shirt makes me want to have a stroke. thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[raviolireptile]

Thank you to @fancycake for their hilarious idea that I had to draw

[hartsnkises]

Alan Turing and Ada of Lovelace did not invent computer science for the girls and the gays to claim they can't do math

[lagonegirl]

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/05/what_state_prisoners_get_to_wo.html

OMG 

[pinehutch]

Things that I knew about: that the mass incarceration of people in the USA , particularly black men, has direct ties to/is an extension of slavery. Things I did not know: this specific shit about Louisiana HOLY FUCK this is evil.

[i-hate-you3000]

OH MY GOSH????

'Modern-Day Slavery': Many Southern States Have Prison Inmates Working in Governor's Mansions and Capitol Buildings - Human Trafficking Sear

When activist Sam Sinyangwe was awaiting a meeting with the governor’s office at the Louisiana state capitol building in Baton Rouge, he not

At Least Seven States Have Prison Inmates Working in Governors' Mansions and Capitol Buildings

The 13th Amendment provides a loophole that allows for the legality of unpaid prison labor, which is sometimes called "modern-day slavery."

[joy-haver]

Grew up next to Angola. It’s much worse than you think

[sisterreisaid]

I wonder how many people are imprisoned for weed

[kaccvcate]

I’m from Mississippi and it’s like this in my home town. Enslaved prisoners clean roadways, pick cotton, everything they’ve done since before slavery was supposedly ended. What they teach in schools is nothing but propaganda.

[rockergiirl]

i hate how pervasive the r-word has become again

its like the 2000s to early 2010s again where talking to anyone theres a good chance they'll casually say a slur without any thought

[rockergiirl]

and whats even more annoying now is people who'll try to weasel out of being called out on it

'oh its fine because i'm legally mentally disabled so i can say it' NOT HOW RECLAMATION WORKS

[rockergiirl]

AND SAME WITH DEGENERATE

STOP TALKING LIKE A FUCKING NAZI

[rlyehtaxidermist]

hate what fascists have done to the word “degenerate” because in mathematics what it means is basically “technically, yes, but fuck you”

a straight line segment is a degenerate triangle. a single line and two parallel lines are both degenerate parabolas. squares are degenerate circles and circles are degenerate squares

[rlyehtaxidermist]

reminder that if you come into my posts talking about ‘degeneracy’ and it’s not funny mathematical objects or atomic orbitals i’m blocking your ass

[phaeton-flier]

would you rather take, (tax-free)

$50,000

50% chance of $1,000,000

Remaining time: 2 days 7 hours

[assistant-honcho]

posts that make you draw your utility curve for money

[afloweroutofstone]

I don’t even want to write a review of “Top Gun: Maverick” honestly, I’ve seen 1,500+ movies and I’ve never finished one that left me more depressed about the future of this country. I just want to stop thinking about it

[afloweroutofstone]

By popular demand:

[afloweroutofstone]

The White House just shared a video using footage from “Top Gun: Maverick” right before real footage of US bombs hitting Iran. I am sorry to announce that I have been 100% vindicated in my views on this movie.

[thatonegeekygirl]

eridian stage production about how rocky and grace saved stars featuring rocky and grace themselves, except they play each other

[avoid-avoidance]

this kinda sounds like something that grace and rocky might try to do by themselves, co-writing and co-directing, to kill some time on the long trip to Erid. rocky was in charge of props, of course, and grace handled any ‘visual effects’. their budget was a whopping “whatever we’ve got lying around in the ship” dollars.

grace was in charge of inserting jokes for comic relief. rocky was then in charge of removing grace’s jokes, in defense of the dignity of their production.

(their production did not, in fact, contain very much dignity.)

[lamignonette]

[prokopetz]

Basically what I'm getting from the present "giving 100% at work" Tumblr discourse is that a lot of people have fairly narrow notions of what blue-collar versus white-collar jobs actually entail. There are in fact manual labour jobs where a significant chunk of your average work day consists of Fucking Around, and conversely, there are desk jobs where you crunch eighty-hour weeks for years on end until you suddenly drop dead from heart failure at age 32. It's absolutely true that you're more likely to end up in a No Fucking Around Allowed situation in a blue-collar occupation, but you can't tell whether or not someone is in that position based purely on whether or not they work in an office. Shit, call centre workers are white collar on paper, and the kind of fuckery a lot of call centre workers are subjected to involves genuine human rights violations.