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218100+ entries in 1.728s
asciilifeform: i suppose a handful of natural schizoids, and slavish imitation thereof, can substitute for dope.
asciilifeform: and yes, animals will fight to the death, to exhaustion - what else might one expect them to do? negotiate a conditional surrender with the mousetrap? a ceasefire with the glass jar ?
mircea_popescu: you know, this was the first mice i've seen in a decade.
asciilifeform: the poor beast promptly got run over by a bus.
asciilifeform: usg caught an alley cat, tamed, and implanted a listening device, then released (in moscow, i think)
mircea_popescu: lol this here is the premise of a decent speculative spy fiction story
asciilifeform: after finally killed one in an electrical trap, the entire force retreated to a neighbour's.
asciilifeform: i actually 'liked' the rats in that flat quite a bit more than the mice. the latter - shat every quarter metre they walked, or so it seemed. the rats - more disciplined, organized, had battalions, detachments - respectable.
mircea_popescu: die on the road, it's a noble death.
mircea_popescu: now - the point here being that a correct set of priorities will in fact move mountains, and my work at my computer as compared in any perspective to a mouse's activities is mountaineous.
mircea_popescu: which is why i eventually stood up from my fucking work, took it to a vacant field further down and let it be.
mircea_popescu: notwithstanding that the lid was you know, on a thread for crying out loud. and since i punched the holes from outside, notwithstanding that there were jagged shards of metal pointing his way, which he could i guess sorta- avoid. tho he mostly looked to be jumping blindly.
mircea_popescu: and i get a good look at the guy, you know ? after all, this had been his land for a long long time, generations of his forefathers had hunted for hayseeds and whatnot on complicated , traditional walk patters all over the field of my garden
mircea_popescu: a little later, the guy is caught, of course. so i put him in a large glass jar with a metal lid, after punching some holes with a screwdriverr in that lid.
mircea_popescu: so i know it's a mouse, right ? and so i get a large bowl, and tape some floss to a pack of ciggs. put some cheese under the propper bowl and get back to chatting.
mircea_popescu: so last autumn i was living in a recently developped residential area - i guess what would be a gated community in the us, except romanians don't gate.
mircea_popescu: want me to tell you the story of my recent adventure with a cute little fuzzball ?
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform you ever captured a mouse ?
thestringpuller: in a land without infrastructure?
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: which part is stupid? most of these people couldn't hope to buy so much as a plastic&cardboard 'trabant' without massive credit
thestringpuller: unless you own like a cold war volvo
thestringpuller: asciilifeform: is a fixed cost, whether or not it moves << this isn't true
asciilifeform: and so, everybody owns - a taxi. and some, even a bus or garbage truck.
asciilifeform: fact is - much of the cost of owning vehicle in usa - is a fixed cost, whether or not it moves
asciilifeform: 'Recently I heard a story on NPR about a poor family that went around looking for discounted food items at various groceries and stopping at the food pantry—in their own private minivan! And so here is a poor family that owns what in many parts of the world would amount to a bus company!' (orlov)
mircea_popescu: but they had a towncar service that would basically go anywhere.
asciilifeform: not impossible - but difficult if work for a living
mircea_popescu: you know i lived there just fine w/o driving or owning a car.
mircea_popescu: o wow that's a first innit
mircea_popescu: it's not such a bad fate.
mircea_popescu: how is this supposed to be a problem again ?
mircea_popescu: "Currently the leadership of the House of Savoy is contested by two cousins: Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples, who used to claim the title of King of Italy, and Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, who still claims the title of the Duke of Savoy. Their rivalry has not always been peaceful — on May 21, 2004, following a dinner held by King Juan Carlos I of Spain on the eve of the wedding of his son Felipe, Prince of Astur
assbot: This is How a 10-Year-Old Boy With Autism is Treated in a Police State | The Free Thought Project
mircea_popescu: i thought you had a theory
mircea_popescu: well, get a girl for that.
ThickAsThieves: when vacationing driving is also a major drag
mircea_popescu: you think i write complicatedly, try morley for a spin
mircea_popescu: i could prolly write a book of psychoantropology on the topic, but sadly it'd be rather incomprehensible in english without a ton of notes which kinda ruin the whole thing, and for 5 romanians able to read and write it's scarcely worth the year o' work.
mircea_popescu: give them a little now and a little later they'll be sucking the c0k and doing a good job of it for years.
asciilifeform: 100k buys what - a year or two of food and roof in usa somewhere on the cheaper side.
mircea_popescu: cheap whores aren't given expensive prizes for a very good reason
asciilifeform: thiel is also a sponsor of 'urbit'.
ThickAsThieves: basically the bot is pegged to a certain conversion value for a specific amount of btc
ThickAsThieves: bb has a way
ThickAsThieves: i heard rumors thiel sent a rep to scout Neo, i guess he dodged that one
mircea_popescu: anyway, once ethereum cracks open thiel being interviewed for his complicity in propping the scam will become a prerequsite for any further discussions re collaboration of bitcoin authorities with us authorities.
ThickAsThieves: well considering your Howard Stern similarities, it's a shame it didnt happen
mircea_popescu: ThickAsThieves i nearly had my radio show in romanian a few years ago.
ThickAsThieves: sounds like a tv show
mircea_popescu: <asciilifeform> http://www.mekanizmalar.com/desmodromics.html << i read desdemona in there for some reason, which reminds me of a story. picture youthful mp at maly, for a staging of othello, in russian. now, bearin in mind that in romanian "zdreanta" means rag or figuratively whore, picture youthful mp hearing a very decided othello burst out "davai zdreanta, desdiemona!!1" and go into incontrollable peels of laughter
mircea_popescu: * asciilifeform has seen this said about more than one obscure natural language, it always seems to be a reflection of the linguist's ineptitude, in practice. << quite. it's not true of inuit languages any more it's true of russian.
ThickAsThieves: but i do have a bet on it...
kakobrekla: o a type 4.
Apocalyptic: who in their right mind would favour such a thing
kakobrekla: hrm, if he is really a mole he is doing a terribly poor job :(
asciilifeform: he can collect his 'order of lenin' right after that chap who burned down a u.s. nuke sub a few years ago.
asciilifeform: (obvious. the man is clearly a mole, and doing a terrific hash of his duties on purpose.)
asciilifeform: in ussr, most children knew the word - as a brand label of delicious ice cream.
asciilifeform: nubbins`: linked document (military manual) suggests a type of pidgin, which it claims can be understood in much of alaska and northeastern ussr
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: by now i'd imagine that assumption is SOP. but we're dealing with a vintage piece here.
asciilifeform has seen this said about more than one obscure natural language, it always seems to be a reflection of the linguist's ineptitude, in practice.
mircea_popescu: prolly a lot more usability, but little fundamental revision
asciilifeform: never met any Soviet citizens, leads a lonely, introspective life, far from other people, and is by profession a forester, fisherman, lighthouse-keeper, security guard or railwayman. In many cases such an agent will be a physical invalid.'
asciilifeform: 'A portrait of an ideal agent for spetsnaz emerges something like this: a man of between fifty-five and sixty-five years of age who has never served in the army, never had access to secret documents, does not carry or own a weapon, knows nothing about hand-to-hand fighting, does not possess any secret equipment and doesn't support the Comunists, does not read the newspapers, was never in the Soviet Union and has
decimation: yeah that's a good point. there's not a bitbet on this point interestingly
mircea_popescu: it's what the french call a marote
mircea_popescu: lol it just shaved a day in two hours.
assbot: How To Get A Girl To Show You Boobs Prank - YouTube
mircea_popescu: so you know, telling me how strong people who temporarily became poor didn't really give much of a shit in terms of "the rich" is about as confusing as discussing pregnancy in terms of "look what people can do". tis not people, tis women and women only that can do it.
mircea_popescu: anyway, orlov misses the major point here. it's not about rich/poor as a measurable characteristic. some people are strong, some people are weak. whether the weak are temporarily rich or permanently poor makes little difference at all, money's not for them anyway, nor anything else good in life.
asciilifeform: there is not, afaik, a 'slut kolkhoz' maintained by usg...
asciilifeform: rich people will pick a eager young slut's rent << quid pro quo, 'enjo kosai', etc. - not much like usg 'welfare'
decimation: yeah there's some truth to that. there's a matter of scale involved too
mircea_popescu: meanwhile poor people resent other poor people for various reasons. "she's a slut" "he's a bum" "they're too self righteous" etc.
mircea_popescu: it's nonsense anyway. the people who actually make money - and by consequence pay taxes - have little problem with limonov and a bunch of other idiots getting 300 bux a month or w/e it is they get. which is why most rich people will pick a eager young slut's rent tab & so forth. da fuck does it make a difference anyway.
asciilifeform: 'I receive Welfare. I live off your labor: you pay taxes and I don't do shit, twice a month I head down to the clean and spacious welfare office at 1515 Broadway and pick up my check. ... What, you don't like me? You don't want to pay? It's not much—278 dollars a month. You don't want to pay. Well then why the fuck did you get me to come here, me and a whole crowd of Jews? Take it up with your propaganda—it'
mircea_popescu: it is actually a quite unique phenomenon.
decimation: well when you give the vote to every breathing biped in a certain area this is pretty much what happens
mircea_popescu: (arachne, for they innocent of the classics, was a rude halfwit spinster - think modern day ceo-wannabe forum kid)
mircea_popescu: a country in which dyonisos is defeated by apollon may do well for a while. but in this case, dyonisos was defeated by arachne.
decimation: I think this 'Puritanism' stems from a basic lack of skills on the part of the bureaucratic leaders. i.e. if you don't know how to write a contract for a nuclear submarine, you try to make sure that your employees are well dressed and that 'decorum' is kept.
mircea_popescu: there should be a word for this specifically american idiocy phenomenon. derpitanism or something.
decimation: yeah if you zoom out, you realize this guy (or really his navy masters) is getting dinged for throwing a good party for some tired sailors in exchange for a few spare mil$ here and there: corruption! Throwing away trillions on various welfare/healthfare schemes: legitimate!
asciilifeform: (with regards to which 'corruption' ends up a matter for criminal courts)
mircea_popescu: hardly a collection of people to follow in business.
mircea_popescu: yes, but then again the us is chiefly known for having squandered a fortune and built up the history's largest pile of unserviced ious.
mircea_popescu: if he hadn't he should be fucking fired for being a humorless, idiotic puritan and bad for business.
mircea_popescu: the army hasn't had a young maiden singe semiramis.
mircea_popescu: if there was a way to save whales but it meant bottling them... if there was a way to attain immortality but you had to be an overweight, socially awkward shut-in ? etc.
decimation: yeah, pretty much, but car driving is a 'human right' in the us
decimation: I have a simple solution to small aircraft accidents: don't let humans fly
decimation: re: small plane safety: http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/safety " If you don't want to die like JFK, Jr., who became disoriented on a dark and hazy night over water, don't fly at night or don't fly at night unless you're absolutely sure that it will be clear with a bright moon. If you don't want to die when a 25-year-old part fails in mid-air, get a new airplane. "
mircea_popescu: http://naughtybits.us/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/fart-like-a-clydesdale_small.jpg
mircea_popescu: <chetty> asciilifeform, forget the gasenwagen you'll get a nice little lab to build toys (with bars of course) << the special wagenb :D
asciilifeform: (http://www.forbes.com/sites/marcwebertobias/2011/05/19/a-former-kgb-covert-entry-expert-speaks << oldie)
asciilifeform: a separate piece of x-ray sensitive film was used to read the scatter. When I inquired about the safety of the operatives and their exposure to the potentially deadly radiation, Nicolai laughed...'
asciilifeform: 'I asked him to describe the equipment needed to focus x-rays at a lock and to read them, thinking that the “source” of the radiation would have to be large and well-shielded... ...The answer I received was quite amazing, but I guess not surprising. I was told that the isotopes which gave off the radiation were contained in a handheld tool about the size of a large flashlight. It was pointed at the lock and
chetty: asciilifeform, forget the gasenwagen you'll get a nice little lab to build toys (with bars of course)
asciilifeform: (high-frequency ac through 1 wire, rectifier a la tesla on the 'rocket' end.)
asciilifeform: if you can cover, e.g., 'predator' - in mylar - it's a brick.