Legitimacy schmischmitimacy

Last week the super-legitimate Supreme Court--whose credibility is totally not in question--handed down its incredibly just decision that any business owner is now allowed to discriminate against anyone based on their firmly held religious beliefs no matter how misguided or flatly contradicted by the actual textual basis of said religion. 

"The steak? I don't think so. You'll have the tempeh sliders. I'm actually
a vegan, and your order conflicts with my deeply held whatevers."

-Some waiter

"It says that where? Where? You know, 
I'm getting real tired of this Cathy."

-Jesus

Cool. But it's come out now that the plaintiff, Lorie Smith, just made up the thing she was complaining about, so they're going to throw this out, right? Smith, who runs a company that makes websites for wedding, wanted to become a hero to shitty people everywhere by noting on her site that she won't make websites for the gays because the Bible famously forbids it. Huh? No, of course it doesn't, that's absurd, and Smith is just using her religion to shield her from accusations of homophobia, but whatever, here we are. Anyway, she was told she couldn't sue the state since no one actually asked her to make a gay wedding site.

Pictured: Lorie Smith of 303 Creative seen
here...uh...does anyone want to tell her
what the Bible says about getting tattoos? 

So rather than wait for the inevitable onslaught of gay betrotheds who want to force a Right-wing goon to craft a website for their special day, Lorie Smith just made one up. Or at least someone did, but they used an actual person's name and phone number to submit a request. The individual, called Stewart, was and is straight, already married, and did no such thing. Also, he himself is a web designer, so even if he did suddenly decide to leave his wife and marry a dude, he wouldn't need Lorie's dumb company anyway. But I guess nobody ever bothered to check any of this out until now. 

Above: That time Brett Kavanaugh
cried because people were mean to him.

And wouldn't you know it? Smith's case happened to go before the Supreme Court at a time when its ability to decide cases has been hopelessly skewed. Skewed by a rapidly diminishing Conservative minority who, feeling the cold fingers of irrelevancy around their throat, leveraged downtick races and re-drawn district lines to put a non-popularly elected President in a position to fill three seats. Two of which were stolen.

So a year ago, when John Roberts complained that people were questioning his Court's legitimacy, it's not just because we disagree with the decisions. We do, we absolutely do. But it's also because his Court's decisions are often wrong, strip Americans of hard-won liberties, and are being decided by people who lied about what is and isn't settled law and shouldn't on the Supreme Court to begin with. 

Oh, and didn't this guy take bribes? Like for years?

You're going to need a smaller boat.

Call me petty, but I just can't help enjoy a headline that begins with "Billionaires disappointed..." In this case, the rest of the story is "...after superyachts banned form Naples port" and I think the Germans have a word for what I'm feeling:

I'd like you to meet my good friend Gunther Schadenfreude. 
Here he is raising a glass to my shameful joy.

Pictured: Arnault's 110 meter floating
symbol of everything wrong with capitalism.

Evidently, the city of Naples, Italy, has recently banned yachts measuring over seventy-five meters from stem to stern or just under two hundred, fifty feet front to back for the metrically and nautically challenged (like me, I had to look those up). It's ostensibly a security measure, although I can't find anything explaining why. The end result here is that the world's current richest man, Bernard Arnault, tried to dock his one hundred-ten meter yacht in Naples and heard a word I suspect he's not been used to hearing after passing the billion-mark: "no." 

When the revolution comes and these guys
are being led to the guillotines and they ask
what they did to deserve this fate, it's this.

The boat? Yacht? Superyacht? Like I said, I'm not nautically inclined, but it's called the Symphony--because of course it is--and cost the billionaire one hundred and fifty million dollars of money, plus an additional fifteen million per year to operate. It features eight staterooms, a crew of twenty-seven to cater the the every whim of up to thirty-six passengers, a pool, and a helicopter pad. Superyachtfan.com goes on to gush about how the Symphony is eco-friendly because it uses thirty percent less energy than a comparable yacht. Yes. A comparable yacht.

Hey, do you know what would be a hundred percent more eco-friendly than sailing a rich dude and his friends around on luxury yacht with caterers and a helicopter pad?

"Damnit, another wildfire. If only more billionaires would follow
Bernard Arnault's noble example and buy marginally more energy efficient
superyachts, we could finally get climate change under control."

-exactly zero fire fighters ever

Above: the people of Naples scrambling to
grab some of the money rich yacht people rain
down upon them whenever they sail into port.

According to The Guardian article, the riches aren't taking it lying down. Their source at the Port of Naples says they are getting "letters from magnates" complaining about how they and their superyachts used to bring money and jobs to the city, not to mention fame, and that this ban is robbing the good people of Naples of the pleasure and prestige of their presence. Which, I mean, if you can think of anything more entitled than billionaires railing against the injustice of them having to dock somewhere else when vacationing in southern Italy, I'd love to hear it. 

Again, maybe I'm being petty and maybe this is sour grapes or something, but the planet is on fire and I pass tent city full of homeless people on my way to work every morning, and Bernard Arnault is sad because Naples won't let him park his glorified party boat. So maybe sell the Symphony, buy a less ludicrous yacht and I don't know, plant some trees or something? And maybe do it before we all wise up and grab the pitchforks and torches?

"Or the city of Naples could just give in and give me what I want.
I am, after all, the richest man in the world. Like, the entire world."

-Bernard Arnault, on the great injustice that has been 

visited upon him and his friends with superyachts.

Who doesn’t love things from vats?

Soon you'll be able eat a chicken whilst looking it right in its beady, uncomprehending eyes. Which, I mean, is a horror show on the surface, but I don't know, hurray for science?

What? They wouldn't know. In fact, my incredibly low estimate of bird
intelligence is a key factor in my (usually) being comfortable eating chicken.

Articles about this keep describing the vats
as something like what brewers use, but I'm not
sure that's making this any less gross sounding.

To be clear, I would never do such a thing, and really, no one would. I'm just saying it will soon be theoretically possible thanks to the U.S. Department of Agriculture giving their approval to two companies to market lab-grown meat. Lab-grown meat, for those who are either unfamiliar or horrified at the very premise, is still meat, just cultivated from cells that are taken from a living animal and then grown in a tank full of nutrients. Next, the "meat" is formed, uh, somehow, into something approaching the texture of meat without the quotation marks.

Not that a situation being unsustainable
has ever stopped us before. Like, not once.

See? Horror show, right? Well, yes, but as unappetizing as that sounds, bear in mind that gruesome way meat has been produced up until now. Like, don't do this--sweet merciful God, don't do this--but you could do a search right now for a video on how slaughterhouses work. So between the environmental impact of the meat industry, and the ethical issues that come along with eating animals (no matter how dumb they are), meat is looking increasingly unsustainable. 

Do I sound like I'm trying to convince myself? Because I am. And I mean, it's probably safe. A similar cultivated meat (another, not really better term for it) has been available in Singapore since 2020, and nobody's mutated into bird-people, so it's probably fine. 

Fine, nobody's mutated yet.

Again, that's trillion with a T.

Yeah, move over CHOAM.

Yeah, sorry, talking about video games again, but crying poverty when you're like the fourth most valuable company on Earth and consequently, the known universe is pretty weak, right? I mention this because this week Microsoft, you know, the hardware/software maker behind Windows, operating system you probably use at work even though it's kind of garbage, was bemoaning its third place status in the home video game market to to the Federal Trade Commission.

Pictured: Microsoft, seen here asking
the FTC for some more gruel.

But why would they do such a thing, and how could anyone possibly feel anything approaching pity for a company worth two point four trillion--that's trillion with a "T"--dollars of money? The why is that it's a strategy to convince regulators that the world needs another massive merger. Microsoft is trying to buy Activision Blizzard, a games developer (Warcraft, Diablo, that Overwatch nonsense all the kids were into a couple years ago), for sixty-seven billion dollars, and sure, billion with a "B", but still, a preposterous amount of money. As for the who's buying it--buying their story that is--I don't know.

Given that both Microsoft and Sony have been consuming developers for years now like giant Katamari Demacy balls of everything wrong with capitalism, I suspect the FTC will eventually give in. 

It's a game where the object is to accumulate so much stuff that the gravity
of it becomes so intense that it coalesces into a star. Why? I don't know, 
but it kind of feels like an analogy for consumerism.

Isn't this how all competitions in the
history of competition works?

What's interesting here is the suggestion on the part of Microsoft that their Xbox is some struggling niche console in desperate need of Activision Blizzard just to stay competitive:

"Xbox has lost the console wars, and its rivals are positioned to continue to dominate...Xbox has consistently ranked third in consoles behind PlayStation and Nintendo."

-Microsoft dunking on themselves

It should have been all over for them during
the "Red Ring of Death" period, and yet they
lived to fight, and complain, another day.

Which, I mean, I'm sorry, I'm no economist but a couple of things here. First, the fact that the industry has consistently supported three of more platforms for more than twenty years is something. The phrase "console wars" was first thrown around in the 90's when Sega and Nintendo were the only real contenders. Since the first Xbox's introduction in 2001, there've been three and Microsoft's been able to hang in there for decades, even being in first place at least once during the 360 era, and that despite the console itself famously overheating on the regular.

This may be lingering bitterness from
The Console Wars, but Sonic is and always
was, shallow and overrated. There, I said it.

And another thing, in what world is letting already giant companies get even gianter good for consumers? Like, again, not an economist here, but they're making the case that they need Activision Blizzard if they're ever going to beat their rivals, but is the FTC's job to help Microsoft sell Xbox's or is it to ensure a fair and competitive marketplace? Back during the Console Wars of the 90's, I was definitely a Nintendo kid, and I'm sure nostalgia and familiarity are why I still am, but I like Xbox too and have always preferred it to Playstation as a platform. But isn't this how capitalism is supposed to work?

I'm not saying that capitalism is great, and until someone invents replicators, I don't have a better idea. But for a company who's inconceivable wealth and profit is built on exploiting this system, it just feels a little gross that they're now pointing to their bronze medal status--a place they've held since Brittney Spears was big--as a reason the FTC should let their Katamari get even more out of hand.

Someone's working on that right? It'd solve a lot of problems...

Ok, so couple of things...

Uninformed opinions make up some
80% of the internet. So, you're welcome?

I booted up the Final Fantasy XVI demo this weekend, and I have some thoughts I want to share. What's that? You don't care? That's fine. Skip this one. I'm not offended. It takes a special kind of nerd to want to sit through what somebody else--particularly me--thinks about a video game. Oh, and let me be clear, I'm not writing a review. No one cares what I think about a thing, I'm not a critic. Criticism is a skill, and a wifi connection doesn't make an opinion an informed opinion. Anyway, some thoughts...

Well, first, this didn't bode well:

Are they so afraid of AI taking their jobs that they're trying to blend in?

Being a quarter Canadian, I'm actually
a little ambivalent about the War of 1812.

I realize that it's just the name of a development team at Square Enix, and that the team itself worked on Final Fantasy's XI and XIV, but c'mon, that's terrible. Still though, I can get past that. What I can't get past is the British. I have no particular beef with the British, well, maybe the war of 1812, but that was like, a hundred years ago. What I do have a perfectly marbled, forty-thousand yen per pound beef with, is Japanese-developed fantasy games getting localized with British accents for no reason. Well, there is a reason, I just find it a tired one.

Ok, fine, high fantasy and space
authoritarians, if you want to split hairs.

I think the rationale is that we, whoever we are, associate the accent with high fantasy. Final Fantasy XVI isn't the only game guilty of this, and I suppose with its more Game of Thrones/LOTR vibe it's at least less jarring than say, Xenoblade Chronicles, which, while firmly in the fantasy genre, had a distinct anime sci-fi flavor. But I'd really love the option to switch to a more, well, I was going to say American accent, but that sounds wrong too. Maybe it's just about the lack of specificity my native accent imparts? 

Above: the developers of FFXVI
daring us to take this seriously.

Imparts to other Americans, I guess. Yeah, alright, British accents just go with medieval castles, even if the game is set on some other planet. And it works fine in this game, at least as far as I've gotten in the demo. Obviously, Final Fantasy XVI is in no way an attempt to recreate any real historical time or place. And yes, all the "yes milords," and "do you yields" do admittedly lend the world whiff of pseudo-history. Medieval-ish. Still though, it feels like Creative Business Unit III went through all this trouble--too much trouble--in pursuit of authenticity only for the King to ride in on a giant chicken.

Sure, it's like calling out The Red Wedding
for being historically inaccurate but, c'mon.

But whatever, it's Final Fantasy. It's a violation of international law to make one without chocobos. Verisimilitude be damned. Can we talk however, about the choice to give their characters anime hair? Look, nothing's going to make chocobos and giant magic kaiju feel particularly plausible, but one of medieval Europe's most striking features, and perhaps the one that is almost always overlooked in fiction, is its terrible haircuts. 

Until developers of high fantasy video games lean into that, I'm going to continue to call them out on the selective historical accuracy. 

What I'm saying is give Clive a bowl cut you cowards.

He's like the Immortan Joe of Texas...

Sure, it denies water breaks to construction workers, but maybe this bill does a bunch of good things too? I mean, it doesn't, but we should give Greg Abbott the benefit of the--sorry, I can't even type that with a straight face. I mean, the man's a monster.

Pictured: Texas Governor Greg Abbott, seen here lording over
the supply of water before a crowd of thirsty construction workers.

Above: some of the Texas road workers
Greg Abbott will be endangering next summer.

Look, I don't live in Texas (thank liberal Jesus), and I'm not a construction worker, but holy shit. Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill this last week which will eliminate local rules that give construction workers ten minute breaks for hydration and sun protection. In Texas. In a time where each successive summer is hotter than the last because the climate is spinning out of control. The bill goes in to effect September 1st, so workers should have some time to get their affairs in order. Greg Abbott: what a guy.

"Gentleman, a toast: to human suffering!"

-supporters

According to the Texas Tribune, supporters say that the bill eliminates a bunch of local ordinances that get in the way of business. Everyone else in the world says that construction workers are human beings and business can go fuck itself. I guess not being content with Trans erasure, suppressing the vote, and relegating women to the status of property/baby factories, the GOP has turned it's aggressive lack of empathy on to the hourly workers who maintain the State's infrasctucture. Why? Who even knows with these people.

Pictured: Austin, one of the few
acceptable parts of Texas.

Texas has the most heat related worker deaths per year of any state, even California which has more people. Of course, California has laws in place protecting worker safety, and is, generally speaking, better. Austin and Houston have laws protecting these breaks and San Antonio was working on one, but so much for those. Hey, guess which counties were won by Democrats in the last election cycle? If you said Travis, Harris, and Bexar counties, you'd be correct. You'd also be really good at naming counties in Texas. I had to look those up. 

Anyway, for a party that's been blowing its own, tired horn over how anti-big government they are, they sure love telling local municipalities who they can and can't let die from heat stroke. 

I suppose the joke's on them. If construction workers quit, who will maintain all
 the highways Republicans need to drive their ludicrous, oversized pickup trucks? 
And without giant pickup trucks, how will mediocre white men feel powerful?

I'm sure this won't be used for evil...

I'm sorry, are we saying we can use computers to read minds now? Because that's what this sounds like. Yeah, fine, click the link, don't click the link, I'm going to sum up either way: according to a paper published by researchers from the National University of Singapore and The Chinese University of Hong Kong, it's possible, using AI learning technology, to reconstruct images from the mind's eye. 

Above: the grim, confusing future we're destined to age into.

Pictured: me, after reading that.

If I'm following this, and if I'm being honest, I don't. Because the researchers says things like:

"...we propose Mind-Video that learns spatiotemporal information from continuous fMRI data of the cerebral cortex progressively through masked brain modeling, multimodal contrastive learning with spatiotemporal attention, and co-training with an augmented Stable Diffusion model that incorporates network temporal inflation."

-the abstract, the part that's supposed

to be a quick summary of the research

But again, if I'm following, I think the idea is that they put your head in some kind of MRI and what you see in your head ends up as a thirty-frame per second video file with 85% accuracy. What 85% accuracy means or how that's even measured is a mystery to me, but fortunately this scientific paper has pictures:

Original video on top, video as filtered through a human brain, 
an MRI machine and then the AI software on bottom. You know, this
might now be the most ominous cat video the internet has to offer.

I mean, dang Wen 2018, why'd
you even show up to this party?

Ok, so you might be thinking to yourself "m'eh, it's not that accurate. But bear in mind that this is a computer that reads your mind. And while the kitty below has the distorted, somehow off quality that a lot of AI generated imagery seems to have right now, it is, and I can't stress this enough, coming from a computer that reads your mind. It's also, as the paper points out, far ahead of previous attempt to--huh? What's that? Oh yes, evidently this has been done before with less impressive results. But still: mind reading computer. Check out the comparison to the right and ask yourself if you could do any better leaning the spatiotemporal multimodal--sorry, are my ears bleeding?

But what's this even for? you might reasonably ask. I don't know, probably some medical applications? The researchers don't say. It's not really their job I guess, but they do bring up the idea that while brain to computer interfaces are promising, there probably should be some governmental regulation to prevent malicious uses of the technology. But it's probably unnecessary. I'm sure everyone will use the power to record information directly from the human brain wisely. After all, we've had such a great track record up until now.

What could possibly go wrong? Everything. Like, just everything.