asciilifeform: jurov: similar machines - but entirely mechanical, no computer - existed since early 20th c., and are still used by american politicians to 'sign' documents.
asciilifeform: The20YearIRCloud: ~100% after certain threshold. -- if you really give a damn, ask a norwegian.
asciilifeform: they assumed that he's whoring under the table.
asciilifeform: the local bureaucrats did not believe that he used the remaining year to relax in his library, carry on as polymathic scholar unencumered by day job (a la taleb)
asciilifeform: and so he did. but didn't realize what would happen next.
asciilifeform: thestringpuller: naggum figured out that he could work ~3 months per year and earn the same money, on account of the strange tax laws of his country
asciilifeform: oisoned, by this. I won’t say he was paranoid, but he became very wary and suspicious, and had real trouble trusting people. And his medical condition just got worse and worse...'
asciilifeform: 'Erik of course, argued. For years and years. And he wouldn’t pay ANY tax because they were so unreasonable. And then of course he did become guilty of tax evasion, and their tax claim just grew and grew. As a refsult, he couldn’t own anything because it would be confiscated, couldn’t earn money because they would take most of it … and so on. After some years, everything in his life was influenced, and p
asciilifeform: not everything is malicious << see the ancient thread (mp's?) re: whether it is useful to distinguish between sufficiently incompetent 'rangers' and actual scammers
asciilifeform favours, e.g., 'headbash' vs 'bashbleed'
asciilifeform is actually fond of hand-cranked 'postscript'
asciilifeform: nubbins`: even 1980s-vintage 'postscript' - works.
asciilifeform: isomorphic ascii representation of whatever-the-fuck-we-want can always be generated on demand.
asciilifeform: and so you get to use multiple GB of memory, to represent a few MB worth of picture.
asciilifeform: (text editor, apparently, does not count as 'program')
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: deliberate use of non-optimally-compact representation was justified with 'humans will read and write it without having to, horrors, use a program.'
asciilifeform: nubbins`: let's eat shit, it's the only food we all have.
asciilifeform: yes, let's have massive 'plain text' representation for multi-MB turds that no human will ever read.
asciilifeform: svg << anyone familiar with the atrocity will understand why everyone involved with 'xml' should be roasting in hell, with devils stoking the furnace with copies of the standards literature.
asciilifeform: e.g. she is sitting on a sharp stake. (probably was not inserted by request) - so perhaps not having fun
asciilifeform: but, positing the fun (vs a taxidermic skin of fun) you can catalogue observables.
asciilifeform: they had fun in different ways << to the naked eye - seem similar ways ?
asciilifeform has no pretenses of ability to look human to cortez, haakon, -- or even a man like isambard brunel, bridge-builder.
asciilifeform: if yes - modern world gets arse drilled out several sizes up.
asciilifeform: the question that almost begs to be asked is whether haakon (cortez, whoever) would immediately seize upon modern tech as being the product of long-dead wizards, as it is.
asciilifeform: (they're 'victorian' gentlemen by comparison)
asciilifeform: the menacing zek on the cover is a real riot, considering how sympathetic the creatures in this book are (compared to russian zeks described in corresponding tomes)
asciilifeform: but possibly as result of a 'loss of maleness' event of some category
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: there is a ritual, in a great many cultures, whereby a miscreant (not necessarily inclined to be buggered originally) is 'lowered into pederasty' - normally as a punishment
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: not them, either. afaik the translation of russian prison 'pederast' to engl. is 'punk' ('nonce' in british world ?? ) ?
asciilifeform: mp_colonist: he would also immediately grasp the present situation as 'nithlings' ('pederasts' to russian prisoner, ??? to english) took control and force people to behave as if they were people and their honour had weight
asciilifeform: magoscientists complaining about how magomagicians aren't doing magoscience right << obligatory: 'monday begins on saturday' (strugatski brothers.) << exists in english!!
asciilifeform: decimation: if you are inventor, gruntwork (of the kind involved in achieving almost anything substantial with existing computer systems) is a monumental torture.
asciilifeform: decimation: this might actually go straight to mp's piece about good knight/conqueror and good father being different animals
asciilifeform: mp_colonist: the man is a geologist (as far as i can judge - a good one) and an amateur scholar of crackpottery. no pretenses at being a monumental philosopher.
asciilifeform: mp_colonist: write to him! dollars to doughnuts, he'll have an interesting answer.
