thekach22-blog

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SAY THE MAGIC WORDS: “Vitleysingur” in Sigur Ros’ “Inní mér syngur vitleysingur”

I’ve fallen in love with Sigur Ros’ wordless jubilation. Their nonsense gobbly gook or, excuse me, “gobbledigook,” is bombastic in all of the right ways. I’ve been writing papers for weeks, and since I’m physically unable to do any work without music playing, I’ve been listening to a lot of Brian Eno and other ambient stuff to act as background music. Most of the time, I hum and bounce to the music being piped into my ears and don’t have anymore than a passing thought about what I’ve heard, but Sigur Ros’ bouncing, bold “Inní mér syngur vitleysingur” (“Within me a lunatic sings”) stopped me in my tracks and pulled me out of what I was writing. Their made-up language of silly, joyful, and strangely moving grunts, yelps, and hums strikes a basic emotional chord that’s difficult to express but simple to connect with.

“Inní’s” theatrics are what make it so compelling. Circular piano flirts in and out like a butterfly going from flower to flower while a pounding rhythm and brassy horns bawl beneath the floating notes of strings and xylophone. The song’s horns, drums, and strings swirl around until the rhythm, melody, and Jonsi’s singing pick up speed like a man running down a hill. Everything gets more focused, spilling into the earphones like a stream, until they’ve swept everything up around them in laughter and noise. Then the song breaks and the instruments go quiet except for bells. After minutes of building momentum, it’s like cresting a hill and jumping into the sunlight. Everything hangs in the air. In the silence, Jonsi whispers his magic word “vitleysingur” – “a fool sings” – and the song crashes to the ground before putting its head down, charging down the hill whooping and hollering.

Jonsi’s unimaginable elation quite literally transcends language; it’s a near-perfect transference of emotion and imagery. Jonsi blurts “vitleysingur” and you see a day at the beach with friends, a run through the fields on a sunny day, a kiss under streetlights – you know, all that cinematic stuff that we all dream about and share in books, diaries, and movies. It’s sheer sunlight, bliss unimaginable. While I may not be able to understand a single word of Jonsi’s clear falsetto, I know exactly what he’s saying.

-Ben Summers

[thekach22-blog]

I think it's a common misconception that domesticating animals is somewhat like enslaving them. It really is more of a symbiotic relationship. No wild animal would have willingly put up with early humans if they didn't get something out of it. Wolves wouldn't have stayed with us and become dogs if they weren't getting food and safety out of it. Many large herbivores that are now domesticated could and would have easily trampled their early human captors or broken their enclosures open if they didn't have a reason to stay. Sometimes individual animals still do if we don't give them what they need.

The animals that have stayed with us for thousands of years have evolved to cooperate with us better. Dogs have additional facial muscles around their eyes that wolves lack in order to mimic human facial expressions. Sheep grow their wool perpetually while their wild counterparts don't because a bigger fleece means they're more likely to be allowed to breed and be kept around. Domestic dairy cows produce much more milk than wild bovine species and domestic hens lay more eggs. Do you know how energy costly producing eggs or milk is for an animal? It's pretty intense! They wouldn't be able to do that if we hadn't given them the food and safety from predators and the elements to.

And we really need to show these animals respect and gratitude for what they give us by taking excellent care of them. They gave up a lot to be with us, often including the means to take care of themselves in the wild. That's a huge reason why I'm not against using animal products, but I hate factory farming. They are still living, breathing creatures with needs and feelings. They deserve a comfortable life and, when the time comes, a humane death.

[thekach22-blog]

ed zitron, a tech beat reporter, wrote an article about a recent paper that came out from goldman-sachs calling AI, in nicer terms, a grift. it is a really interesting article; hearing criticism from people who are not ignorant of the tech and have no reason to mince words is refreshing. it also brings up points and asks the right questions:

if AI is going to be a trillion dollar investment, what trillion dollar problem is it solving?

what does it mean when people say that AI will "get better"? what does that look like and how would it even be achieved? the article makes a point to debunk talking points about how all tech is misunderstood at first by pointing out that the tech it gets compared to the most, the internet and smartphones, were both created over the course of decades with roadmaps and clear goals. AI does not have this.

the american power grid straight up cannot handle the load required to run AI because it has not been meaningfully developed in decades. how are they going to overcome this hurdle (they aren't)?

people who are losing their jobs to this tech aren't being "replaced". they're just getting a taste of how little their managers care about their craft and how little they think of their consumer base. ai is not capable of replacing humans and there's no indication they ever will because...

all of these models use the same training data so now they're all giving the same wrong answers in the same voice. without massive and i mean EXPONENTIALLY MASSIVE troves of data to work with, they are pretty much as a standstill for any innovation they're imagining in their heads

[thekach22-blog]

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As I grow older I feel my capacity to understand that Miss Piggy is not a real person reached a peak in my adolescence and is now on a steady decline. I watched a Wendy Williams interview and there's this part that's like "can we get a ring cam!" and Miss Piggy shows her bling and I'm just like fuck she's so iconic. Miss Piggy who are you wearing? Miss Piggy have you ever considered running for office??

[thekach22-blog]

tumblr is the root of half the internets trends and memes

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Its good that people are talking about the “noble savage” stereotype and how it is harmful and at the same time I keep seeing climate doomers claim that anything related to indigenous environmentalism or traditional ecological technology is just a product of that stereotype and it makes me want to scream.

[thekach22-blog]

friend made my birthday cake

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there's a difference ok

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Happy Moon Day, one and all!! Also, if you're near western Ohio, I highly recommend attending the Summer Moon Festival in Wapakoneta, OH. It's an annual festival commemorating the moon landing, held in the hometown of Neil Armstrong (which is also home to the Armstrong Air & Space Museum, which is fantastic). We stumbled upon it last year purely by chance and had an incredible time! Really, all cities should have a Moon Festival, even if they're not associated with famous astronauts.

Hey. Why isn’t the moon landing a national holiday in the US. Isn’t that fucked up? Does anyone else think that’s absurd?

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Neil Banged out his tunes today, on a train you have the comfort and relaxation to bang out your own tunes

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I will never not repost this list!

Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.

[thekach22-blog]

Plaintext from the video: Please do not type out your DNIs like this. This kind of censorship is inaccessible to those with screen readers. Thank you.

[thekach22-blog]

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

[thekach22-blog]

The rules of the game are simple:

You go to geoguesser

You set it to world map

You go through locations, through multiple games, driving around those locations

Until you see a cow

When you find a cow, you win