Random Thoughts Thread

[Deathhappens]

No snowstorms on the horizon here (not after Medea came and went, at any rate), but we're in that weird phase where it's too warm to wear a regular shirt under a jacket, but too cold to just go with a t-shirt.

[Laserman]

[Historia]

So, this just occurred to me now, but about a month ago I picked up a 'like-new' condition copy of the Simarillian from a local thrift store for a couple cents. I thought 'perfect just what I needed to replace the one I lost'. Well, got no proof other than what are the chances some other tolkien nerd would find a used copy of the Simarillian exciting in my area, but I want to say it's the same one I lost.

And by 'lost' I mean accidentally placed in my box of book donations when I gave away a ton of books (easily 30-40) to charity--but that was about 4 years ago so what are the chances, yes?

I suppose what I'm really saying is I can only hope most of those books aren't sitting on a thrift store's shelf for years. Makes me kind of sad--would have just sold them myself if I had the sense back then.

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Also greetings, haven't been here in... a year? Two? This thought bubble just wouldn't pop so I decided to share it here.

[Mattias]

I think how long it sits on the shelf depends on the genre, really. Quick disposable ones, like Harlequin romances and Grisham mysteries probably see a lot more turnover than thousand page old fantasy epics. Those tend to be the kind of books you go out and buy new from a bookstore, or borrow from a library when you're a teen.

[Historia]

Dan Brown books.

[Mattias]

There's so many more than you'd ever expect too. Everyone snapped them up when Da Vinci code got big, so the shelves are always full of those lousy cyber terrorism ones.

[Mattias]

I went looking back to the old Winter 2017 Anime thread to see if I could find out why I ended up dropping Tanya the Evil when it first aired, and instead was greeted with the ghosts of forumites past. Even wierder was seeing everyone discussing Seiren, an anime that I don't even remember existing yet apparently I watched more than a few episodes of.

Looking into the past is odd.

[Morg van Destro]

Would catgirls actually be a good thing?

[RoydGolden]

Would catgirls actually be a good thing?

What a strange question. Do you mean literally just human women with cat ears or that plus actually serving a cat role, i.e being treated as domestic pets from society's perspective? (The VN/anime Nekopara had something like that, though it was left somewhat ambiguous how many rights the "Nekos" actually had separate from their masters). Because obviously the latter would raise huge issues with ethics and consent IRL, whether the "catgirls" were bred to enjoy their servitude or not. (Reminds me of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy's cow that enjoys being butchered).

Even aside from the blatant ethical obstacles, it'd bring up the question of if engineering an "idealized" partner/girlfriend (as I presume most people talking about catgirls don't just want them to do ordinary cat things with) would erode the chaos and variety that makes actual interactions with the opposite sex so meaningful. After all human values are complex so any attempt to reduce them into something easily maximizable (like say allotting everyone a perfectly compatible partner) inherently risk losing something important. (Part of why Utilitarianism is theoretically sound but doesn't tend to work in practice).

So overall cat ears and tails on cute girls are pretty great, and perfectly possible with a bit of futuristic genetic engineering, but if you mean anything more than that by "catgirls" I doubt it'd be good. Still hot to imagine for fetish reasons, but not something I'd want brought into real life.

[LegalLoliLover]

It's only natural for things to be optimized, made efficient or "insta". Values and tradition tend to fall by the wayside, compared to that. Why do you think more traditional samurai still preferred swords when everyone else was using guns? Why do you think they got their butts kicked? But of course, why do you think people still glorify the "noble" swordsman triumphing over the "cold" gunman (which, to me, is more comedy than drama)?

[RoydGolden]

It's only natural for things to be optimized, made efficient or "insta". Values and tradition tend to fall by the wayside, compared to that. Why do you think more traditional samurai still preferred swords when everyone else was using guns? Why do you think they got their butts kicked? But of course, why do you think people still glorify the "noble" swordsman triumphing over the "cold" gunman (which, to me, is more comedy than drama)?

It's "natural" in a certain sense but that doesn't make it good or something to be cheered on. Death and entropy are natural things too, but I happen to believe it's the goal of humanity to fight against them. Your digression on samurai and gunmen doesn't seem relevant when, again, I'm not saying "optimizations" aren't natural, just that they're not necessarily good. From a traditional samurai's point of view the advent of firearms is absolutely an instance of complex human values getting trampled over by inhuman (more accurately human-indifferent) efficiency. You or I may not care about that (personally I've seen enough badass gunslinger flicks to not think guns are inherently less romantic than swords), but there's things we do care about (love, freewill, even consciousness itself) and very much don't want efficiency to trample over.

[LegalLoliLover]

Well, yes, when you have a gun-exclusive movie. However, when guns and swords both appear in the same movie, it's always the "bad guys" who use the guns. Or in the case of even more ridiculous stories, such as Charmed or Jackie Chan Adventures, it's always the "incompetent guys" who use the guns. No, Uncle, as Kiritsugu points out, magic is not necessarily defeated by magic. Oh, the bullets were enchanted? ... Fair compromise.

[AsGryffynn]

It's now time to make it OFFICIAL! I am leaving the Xbox family (strictly speaking, the console) since they have broken the curation prime directive (no otome games on the system unless they come after a galge) which means I'm, as of now, a PC gamer!

I will have Linus Tech Tips assist with my conversion soon.

[Nikiri]

bad time for getting a pc

[Mattias]

bad time for getting a pc

Why would that be? Something about those 3080's from a few months ago?

[Nikiri]

prices skyrocketed because of shortage of gpu (and scalpers)

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also bitcoin might have influenced a bit

[Mattias]

Yeah, from what I've heard both the 3080's and PS5's are really good for bitcoin mining, which meant that the scalper bots were that much more persistent.


Though that doesn't really stop you from just nabbing last year's not quite as god model for, what, a quarter of the price of the top of the line?

[Deathhappens]

There's so many more than you'd ever expect too. Everyone snapped them up when Da Vinci code got big, so the shelves are always full of those lousy cyber terrorism ones.

Hey, Digital Fortress and Deception Point are far more interesting than either Da Vinci Code or Illuminati. They're still ridiculously far-fetched, but at least they don't rely on batantly lying to write a story.

[Walnut Sparks]

Finally threw out a quarter of a bag of pumpkin spice marshmallows that I'd been trying to finish for several years. I knew as soon as I'd tried the first one one that they were a bad idea, but at first I felt bad about wasting that much food.

[Nikiri]

Though that doesn't really stop you from just nabbing last year's not quite as god model for, what, a quarter of the price of the top of the line?

last years models prices also went up, it's not really money efficient

like my card is now worth more than when I bough it, I could profit from selling it

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but that's just me, I don't like to overpay