#yeah i don't know how to reassemble computers...

[ragyragd0ll]

Mousse, happy birthday! I'm so sorry I'm 6 days late

[nhaneh]

I think a lot sometimes about the pushback against the concept of talent within arts and I mean yeah on some level I get it, but also the suggestion that anyone can learn to draw is, to me, like saying anyone can learn to program.

like yes, sure, at the end of the day just about anyone can likely find some way of forming vague scribbles using their tool or input peripheral of choice, but that's basically like saying just about anyone can find ways of writing semicolons and the words if, then, else on some kind of digital computer - the difficulty was never in achieving the most basic and abstracted interpretation of the act, but in an understanding of how your actions translate into the kind of end result that you want.

in programming, the most basic starter program that nearly every extremely basic example or tutorial will start with is called Hello World, which is simply a program that prints or otherwise displays the text Hello World to the user.

#include <iostream>

in python, this can be done with a single line of code, like so:

print("Hello World!")

while in C++, that same program will take a bit more work:

#include <iostream>

int main()

{

std::cout << "Hello World!\n";

return 0;

}

Now if you have the ability to copy that text into a file then congratulations, you have the ability to write a program! But, obviously, to really do any actual programming, you kind of need to know what any of the above actually means and what it makes the computer actually do.

This by the way is why the "Learn to Code" kind of initiatives tend not to work out very well, because while technically anyone can write code, actually understanding how to code is a much more complicated affair that can't necessarily be directly taught - it's something that has to be understood.

What is needed, basically, is a system - a kind of mental library of symbols and concepts that you can rearrange and reassemble in various ways to reach a particular solution; a point where you can break down a larger problem into a bunch of much smaller, more individualised problems that are easier to solve one by one.

This is basically how expertise works - whether consciously or (much more often!) not, you form models and systems in your head to let you simplify and, to an extent, automate otherwise complex tasks. If you've ever looked at something and just felt this feeling of "aha, I see how this works", then you should technically already know what I'm talking about.

And look, this is not an argument against practice - expertise takes work, it takes training and experience and gradually discovering ways in which things start making sense to you, even those things that you might have an intuitive knack for. However, what I do think is that telling people who say they can't draw to "just draw anyway" is a lot like, and just as dismissive as, "Learn to Code" because, just like how saying "I don't know how to code" generally is not meant to be understood as "I am physically unable to write words into a text document", saying "I can't draw" typically does not mean being physically unable to form lines or shapes on paper or in a digital image or whatever. Rather, it's a statement about being unable to break down the problem of how to reach a desired end result into smaller, manageable steps that you are able to grasp. And, much like with programming, not everyone will have an eye, or a mind, for it: just like some people struggle with spelling or mathematics or, indeed, code, some people also struggle with colour or perspective or object shape or lighting and shading. And, by contrast, for some people these things also come much more easily and naturally than others.

Not everyone can do everything - at least not to such an extent that it would let them do something they would want to do. Practice can help, certainly, but it's not necessarily guaranteed to bridge the gap either. I mean, I personally find it baffling how many people seem to struggle with what I consider basic computer literacy, but that's a lot to do with the fact that I just happen to find much of it pretty simple and straightforward where a lot of people don't. Not everyone has a base aptitude to build on for every field or skill, and that's both fine and normal. And I mean - something as simple as the ability to put in the effort to practice and learn a particular skill or expertise is in itself a skill, and one that can be very selective about what contexts it's willing to apply to.

[the-firebird69]

We can see that you don't like our son but a lot of people figured this out Billy z they figured out that the empire was going to get the ships no they're getting the computers because of you. You activated the computers they saw you doing you made a big deal out of it you had Trump announcement and you don't understand what the f*** you do you handed it to them why did you do that and he say I didn't think I was hating it to them I thought it would be a fight so if they know what it is and kind of detect where it is and what it is and they have to stay hidden I mean come on you can't figure that out oh we tried to take it that makes sense you're an amateur so you're saying you have nothing after having these ships close in and interviewing practically everybody about everything so people going after you and they see what probably happened and you murdered Sarah everybody thinks you're the shooter the devil will Baghdad and they nowhere JC and Mary were no so they think you shot him and he was reassembled by our son advice to his sister-in-law now we are going after you for this crime Billy z and we're going to stop you.we did figure out what you're doing you're trying to have the computer activate and you're trying to have it go after people and it went after you and your ships are contaminated

Thor Freya

I don't understand the program and how to stop it and if it's up here I don't know it's even here and he says of course you're a stupid person and it would be hard for him to figure out he doesn't have the computing knowledge of programs and I've all sorts of things to say but I think I know how to do it

Billy z

Okay so we have another idiot saying that they have it we're going to check it out

Hhh

I think I know what happened meaning that he's a lame computer person doesn't know his stuff he's not my dad he's not Dave he's not Mac he's not bill or will and he had them in prison he's trying to get them to do stuff and it didn't work it doesn't like his army and he doesn't like other armies he figures after some point to be attacking people she needs to see what he's saying to the computer in about it and stuff like that is some kind of brown nose who said he freed them

Zues Hera

Yeah we have that and we did review it and we know what he was saying it's pretty harsh and it's exactly what you said

Hhh

We have it too and it does say that and we get it he probably can't control it he's an idiot and he knows he is he is saying he in college if this guy turns on me I'm done cuz he's real smart what you say is this class is easy the school's easy and it was he's not challenged to learn that much he's learning but not too much A lot of it is regurgitation no he says to us I can't stand it he's smarter than this and we said this Billy you're stupid now approves he's not smart enough to do it and he has a story about his family and he did it himself and he went through the center of the earth and he has a story we want

Hhh

They're a huge shifts and you might not be concerned about the computers and he may have disabled them doesn't have much use for them maybe and he got designs that people didn't have for Jager and other things and it'll be down there but I know what's down there if you went there and you people need to know and yeah you're going to fight each other over it but yeah

Zues Hera

It's true as hell he thinks they're huge shifts and this guy knows about it and he's the big ship guy

Hhh

We were on it and we're on it and we know what he's done is not true Memphis to Memphis makes sense there's other towns and cities like that boy that's tough but really what would you do it's hard to remember something sometimes

Cane

This is going to take off this guy Tommy f is going to be in the dirt and we need him there he's an a****** to her son and he's a lunatic and he's he's actually a cro-magnant partly and his nuts he's nuts insane and it won't change same with Trump they belong together and he said we put them together and it'll work and it did they're both greedy morons. It's going to happen they're both going to be dead soon his son is completely nuts he's worse than anyone but he wants to know so he's going to fight with Tommy f

We need this out and it's coming out finally they're a big huge shifts other than the juggernauts and George was not the class of JC and Mary it's not really hard so we're moving out on this stuff but right now we are of a concern our son needs help we have to get in there I'm sending orders but please

Thor Freya

Yeah you're doing the job we have to get in there and we're doing it this is great we have to print

Frank Castle hardcastle

Thank you Zues

Hera

You're welcome and this guy was aiming a weapon in my head so I have to do it and yes making me nervous too that stupid crap

Zues

Good

Hera

Olympus

[ladyfromaspookyforest]

Stranger Things & The Fly

I was looking at the ST4 DNA board, which I haven't personally spent time closely examining, and I saw The Fly on there. I'm assuming they meant the 1986 version and not the 1958 one because...you know...the 80s. So my immediate thought was "oh. NINA."

But I decided to do a rewatch of The Fly to see what else paralleled, and it isn't just the NINA elements. Rather, there are two separate parts of the Stranger Things 4 story that echo The Fly. Someone has probably already talked about this, but I'm crap at searching for things, so I couldn't find it. SO I'LL TALK ABOUT IT ANYWAY. This will contain spoilers for The Fly (1986).

The purpose of the pods in The Fly is teleportation via disintegration. You put something in one pod, it disintegrates, then reassembles itself in the other pod. Sounds familiar, you say?

This is the second storyline I'll be talking about.

In The Fly, our scientist protagonist, Seth Brundle, has figured out how to teleport inanimate objects, but when he tries to teleport anything living, it goes wrong. I was going to post a screenshot of him attempting to teleport a baboon, but it's maybe too icky for tumblr? Basically, in Seth's own words, "It turned the baboon inside out." Hmm. Reminds me of...upside down? Seth says "Something was lost in translation." So when the baboon was transported by disintegrating and reassembling, it didn't come back right. This is because he says "Computers are dumb. They only know what you tell them." So he teaches the computers to understand flesh (yeah, idk how he did that either). And the next baboon lives! Huzzah!

What does that mean? Maybe that 001's transportation to this other world (which may or may not be the Upside Down...could even be, dare I say, the Inside Out?), something went wrong. We see how mutilated he became and while he lived and Baboon #1 did not, he still ends up looking like a grody sack of meat, just like Baboon #1. Seth apologizes to Baboon #2 about killing his brother in an aside, but the brother comment is interesting. Perhaps meaningless. But with all the weirdness surrounding Henry that we still don't have answers to (like who tf is Edward Creel?) and the time wonkiness we can expect from season 5, it seems possible that there's a different version of Henry (or Edward) that DIDN'T come out as a grody sack of meat.

After the baboon success, Seth decides to teleport himself (dumbass) and it's VERY IMPORTANT that there is nothing else in the pods or else the molecules could reassemble wrong. And a fly gets into the pod with him, causing his DNA to merge with the fly's DNA when he comes out the other pod. Which brings me back to the NINA Project.

The purpose of the NINA project is to do exactly what the pods do accidentally. The NINA project is intended to influence the person in the pod by putting them in there with an external source. So like Seth's DNA changes with the presence of the fly (accidentally), El's memory changes with the presence of the video tapes.

The fact that Seth comes out wrong could indicate that El does too. The video tapes could, in fact, be influencing her to remember events incorrectly rather than truly giving back her genuine memories of events. There are other people on here who have written some really incredible, comprehensive posts compiling evidence of all the discrepancies between what we see in flashbacks and throughout NINA, so I'm not going to try. But at the end of the day, we still don't know why. Evidence seems to support that Vecna is a different version of Henry/Edward than the one El is being told to remember in NINA, and what she's seeing may in fact be a combination of what she's being told to and what she truly experienced. If you were to look at this through the lens of The Fly, El and the videotapes being in a pod together would make sense as a merging of two things rather than as a recovery of her own memories. (How relevant The Fly is, who's to say, it's all speculation for fun)

Of course, Seth comes out monstrous and El does not (*cough* probably). This brings Seth back to paralleling Vecna, as his disintegration and reconstruction in a horrific way alters not just his appearance, but who he is fundamentally. I imagine something similar happened to turn 001 into Vecna.

There's a super weird quote in the movie after Seth merges with the fly but before he realizes what's happened. He's trying to get his love interest to go through the pods and she refuses.

"You're afraid to dive into the plasma pool, aren't you? You're afraid to be destroyed and recreated, aren't you? ...You can't penetrate beyond society's sick grey fear of the flesh. Drink deep or taste not the plasma spring...I'm talking about penetration beyond the veil of the flesh, a deep penetrating dive into the plasma pool." So...WTF amirite? It's sort of a bunch of raving nonsense, but there are key words and phrases in there that really stick out to me. Being destroyed and recreated. The multiple references to the pool. (There is no pool in The Fly. This is a metaphor but there IS one in Stranger Things) The veil beyond the flesh, which could be the veil of...shadows? And of course, it's all about fear.

Brenner tells El "If you go too fast, I'm afraid you could become lost in the darkness. And if you are lost, so are we all." As evidenced by The Fly, going too fast very much did get Seth lost in the darkness. Brenner was even at least partially right about El. He tells her she isn't ready but she leaves anyway and she doesn't save the day. The apocalypse comes to Hawkins. (And Max is lost in the darkness)

I think the clearest parallels with this movie are the pods and the disintegration method of travel. Everything else is me blabbing. But after this rewatch, I am intrigued by the idea of the other Henry/Edward being the "successful" version of a teleportation.

Here are a couple of other quotes I found interesting that I'll just be leaving here for funzies:

"The sheer process of being taken apart atom by atom and put back together again...why, it's like coffee being put through a filter."

"Human teleportation, molecular decimation, breakdown and reformation, is inherently purging. It makes a man a king."

[bitimdrake]

I'm so sorry, but how did my boy Cyborg turn into a planet??

Phew, okay, it's been a minute since I've read it all, but let's see if I can still do this. Because obviously we are taking the long way through this explanation.

A History of How Cyborg Became a Planet

Once upon a time in 1980, Cyborg was introduced in New Teen Titans as the cyborg we all know and love, and remained as such for about a decade.

Then he got blown up and lost much of his memory in the terrible Titans Hunt storyline, and subsequently ended up far more like a lifeless robot and less like a person for a very long and awful stretch of comics. Eventually it was determined he was still alive in there (yay), but was basically trapped inside a fully mechanical shell, unable to do anything beyond mechanical responses and only sometimes aware of things around him (aw).

Then Technis appeared--a moving computer planet slash dying cybernetic hivemind in need of...souls to assimilate or something? Look, I do not remember the technicalities of this very old comic, but essentially Technis determined that Cyborg, being compatibly machine-like but also with a soul, was exactly what they needed to adapt and survive.

Good news: they can finally help Vic to not be trapped in his own body and be a person again. Bad news: turns out he's in a bad place anyway and won't be able to sustain power (i.e. survive) if he leaves Technis. Vic gets absorbed into the cybernetic hive mind planet, and they fly off into the space sunset. Vic's last appearance for a couple years is New Titans #107.

(this is how the comic gives a tragic and heartfelt goodbye to Cyborg...with his face weirdly formed on the computer-planet's surface)

Now I hear you crying foul, because Vic is only a part of a hive mind that occupies a computer planet here, and not really a planet himself. Don't worry. I'm getting there. He's gonna be a totally different planet.

Technis and Vic reappear in the run's final storyline (New Titans #127-130), where we find out Vic has been reborn in an energy construct body and is going by Cyberion.

(that’s him, the black and red man with glowing eyes and cyber-dreads)

Blah blah dramatic storyline here. Technis gets destroyed, but Vic/Cyberion decides to stay in space, following Technis's old directive to explore and rebuild. Gar (a.k.a. Changeling, a.k.a. Beast Boy) stays with him, and the pair stop appearing in comics for another couple years as they do things in space.

However! Gar reappears without Vic towards the end of Teen Titans vol 2, having apparently left his best friend because things started getting too weird...

Cue JLA/Titans (a mini I genuinely enjoyed, for the record) where a strange planet made of debris from ruined worlds comes to earth, interrupting computer systems, kidnapping Titans left and right, and absorbing the moon into itself for strange and esoteric reasons that seem to convey an unexpected sense of loneliness and...okay, yeah, it’s Vic.

(a portrait of a man)

You see, Gar left because Vic was getting a little too into the Technis drive to reassemble/repopulate after his hivemind space family’s destruction. He got his hands on a mech suit made out of fully morphable metal, which he took over rather than remain an energy construct. And as he collected materials around the galaxy, he absorbed them into his new body, collecting more and more, growing larger and larger, trying to recreate the Planet Technis until, you know. Planet Cyberion.

And that’s how Cyborg became a planet!

[the-firebird69]

Billie Eilish edit!

She's having a girl's person and tries to abuse her son our son and says we're not related but she said help herself like a lot of these women and it doesn't ever work and it turns out to be torture and they try and use it as a threat now we have to stop these people from doing that we have value in there their bodies little and we need the brains back in there and we need to ask questions and I don't know why this is going on for so long yeah we do it anyway we're in a bind and they keep on doing it and it's just wonderful people who don't understand what they're doing there's something lunch use the compost something that a lot of people can't and his disability makes it so it's like dumb things but the max like that and he said what can I do assembler and let them have them so he's amazed at the answer and she is not going to be free from it and realize it's kind of a job and it's horrified at what they have to do now these people are deadly and have been a pain in their side for a long time and it's like his grandpa they're very dangerous and sharp and people who are awesome why not and the people occupying their bodies are not they are slobs and ignorant and they don't know what they can do or heal the brain or be big and it's really terrifying how oft they are about what the situation is and our son-in-law and from the other side keeps on calling her grandma and she tries to abuse him and says it's good for her and then here she heard what should we do reassemble them so the mats can get at them and Tommy f was mentioned and then he says I don't know why that would be true because then Tommy f would have the information so she's replaced too and then she said this idiot next door does that kind of thing and she inquired and he said softly I don't know how to ask some questions so then there's a mystery and our son said that maybe they themselves are sending their own body out and people get a little curious and then they started getting horrified and said we think the robot computer is doing it and saying that it's free and we were thinking of that too but we know what the truth is the truth is that the max are messing around with their own plan and we are going after them for their massive indiscretions because they're threatening us with the AI and it's the max and they can get both pieces together and for some reason they're they're trying to get the AI and they are not allowed to so they're threatening to lose the events and that's been doing the embeds and that's what's going on for a while and it's mostly them I'll turn it to all them. Now there's a lot of it going on and he told him he's in the big leagues and the guy can't get it so we're going to tell him something that will show him

I'm from Hera's side of the family and she's a little frisky and she said he says you don't have to prove your Russian and is attacking him further as a bird in a skit but okay we have a name and we will get it out there but we are god and goddess of Russia and we run a large portion of it there are others about us here too but we thought we'd mentioned it and he does want to hear the names. And it is kratos and goddess wife and thank God he named himself it or we never hear from us, he says yes

kratos and goddess wife

Olympus

[the-firebird69]

This is Mac and he's revived of course if he actually did pass but I don't think you did something happened to his character. He plays Ash and on alien the movie I think he may have had a role on the first two in the series which are prequels that were made later and that would be Prometheus and covenant. And Prometheus it's hard to identify who they are but not impossible I think that he's one of two of the security team or three and Tommy f comes back as the second fasbender. In alien, after covenant he's Ash I don't know what he was doing in covenant they run into deacon who gets a bunch of them killed.

And in alien he's beheaded by the Queen who is certainly not human who is deacon and I think that they sense where she goes and the transfer to a pyramid in Antarctica as the predators grabbed her.

This is not this Monday but I believe he's the lead singer of Foreigner and somehow he's returning home on a Monday but I don't know from where or when. It might be from Jupiter ascending and he might be the strange person who's the king and does a very strange speech to that '70s girl. He is extremely demented in the movie and it was reassembled she says that might be why and he hit the roof kind of fight and the cerebus computers left and they're forced to leave and yeah he returns to the Monday with cloud City and he returns to Britain and he leaves for written from a small town next week after he might become gigantic and fight stan

Thor Freya

This sucks at all is in writing and beforehand but I see what you're saying I may have gotten killed by that b**** monster thing the xenomorph Queen so I have to thank her later but holy cow I want a story.

Mac

It's a good thing is slowed down and pieced it together because if something happens to you who there's a problem and you have problem too

Zues Hera

Well this is how he says it says it every time I do recognize this work it's exemplary I don't think many people pieced it together and he's looking at ash going ohhhh and yes he was recognized and also the fact that people are saying he's a robot especially sigourney who is not Michelle Obama

Mac

Okay but everybody was and you so you could dope

Sigourney

Yes I see but it doesn't make sense

Mac

Take it how you want I'm going to rescue my boy hey man my husband's and other stuff we call him

Sarah