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Sunday’s Forum
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23 responses to “Sunday’s Forum”
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Elon, Zuckerberg, Thiel, Altman and other sociopath billionaires are building massive, fortified survivalist compounds.
A historical note: Muammar Gadaffi didn’t just have a compound, he had multiple palaces. And he didn’t just have private security guards, he had an army, and secret police. Yet, he ended up being dragged through the streets with a bayonet literally shoved up his ass.
Just sayin’.
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We had a pretty good 4th of July. Our neighborhood (a pretty large community) had a band, food trucks, and fireworks. It was hot and humid during the day but a nice breeze picked up in the evening. Dogs got their CBD chews. We got our beer and wine. There seemed to be less decoration and less enthusiasm this year but that may have been me. Street fireworks seem to be less and ended earlier. Overall, a damn good day.
How did it go for you all?
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Great minds, and all that… 😀
Perhaps you can answer a question for me. The book I read was by a NYT bestselling author of the beach-read variety. Many many books published. The one I was reading had the following…issues:
A character who died from a burst appendix in one chapter was referred to as having died from the flu in another chapter
Children in one chapter were described as “dark haired,” but had red hair a couple of chapters later
A main character went to her mother’s house, sibling joined her there, but then in the same chapter the sibling somehow appeared at another relative’s house
etc.Is this a product of rushing the editing process? Or did the author barely make deadline and couldn’t be bothered to run a consistency check? I’ve noticed things like this creeping into books, but it feels more…pronounced in the a-book-a-year type author set.
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It was hot here too—just over 100F. But a bit less humid than the last few days, so a couple of us took an afternoon walk in a park with extended natural lands. Only passed one other person on the trail in the 2 hours. A lot of interesting flora and fungi were pointed out to me, and we got a good look a pileated woodpecker, a black-colored gray squirrel, and a nearby buck and doe as we emerged from an overgrown side trail.
Some headed out to see fireworks, but because of approaching storms, changed plans to another place that has fireworks tonight.
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I stumbled onto some Babylon 5 trivia: Walter Koenig was initially offered the role of Knight Two in the season 1 ep “And the Sky Full of Stars”.
He was unable to take it, as he states on the video, because he had a heart attack and required time to recuperate.
I’ve to question this, because the first ep of Koenig playing Bester “Mind War” aired first. Of course, TV production is not necessarily shot, or even cast, in order.
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From Lurker’s Guide To Babylon 5:
JMS Speaks:
We’d initially offered Walter [Koenig] the role of Knight Two in “Sky,” but when his health prohibited using him, we went to Patrick McGoohan, who loved the script, wanted to do it, but was going to be out of the country at the time of shooting. We then shifted Walter to “Mind War.”
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Ten years ago, J. G. Vance wrote an article for The Atlantic trashing Trump. Here it is:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/opioid-of-the-masses/489911/
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BTW, is anyone else following the strangeness surrounding Sen. McConnell?
Somewhere around June 14, EMTs were called to his house were there was a report of an “unconscious person.” This was coded as an ALS (advanced life support) call. He’s been in the hospital ever since.
He has not been seen since, but his office keeps saying that he’s working, but not going to be voting. Thune says that he talked to McConnell on June 22.
Honestly, they need to do something to prove he’s still alive. This is all very weird and sus AF.
Also–Republicans need to own up to the need for health insurance reform. The fact that McConnell has allegedly been in the hospital for THREE SOLID WEEKS and Kean was out of commission for FOUR MONTHS is…thanks to their insurance coverage. This sh!t would bankrupt most families, even with insurance.
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I’m hoping McConnell isn’t in a coma. I want that miserable old fart to suffer.
I’ve heard that if they can keep him around until August 3rd, then the special election will coincide with the general election, and that the Republicans think they will do better in that case. I want Mitch aware enough to realize that his malingering corpse is just being used as a prop and that no one cares about him.
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@MarkedMan — The “reply” nesting stops after I think three or so replies (it’s a setting and James said that he picked that so reply chains don’t get out of control).
I guess AI isn’t out of the question, but this is a long-established author. Also, I’ve noticed this kind of thing before AI, so it’s not like it doesn’t happen (in one case a number of years ago I read a sequel to a book and one of the couples went from having a child in the first book, to no kids and not being able to have children in the sequel.) I remember thinking, “wait, what” and going back to the first book just to confirm I was remembering correctly.
I’m a close reader with a pretty good memory for details.
Again, these are “follow a formula” type authors…which makes me think that there’s something specific about that process that enables errors.
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There are a couple of pre-AI reasons for this, the first one being that bestselling authors, particularly of the beach read variety, aren’t edited, because the editors know whatever crap they churn out will sell. The second reason is that the bestselling “authors” hire different people to write their books, sometimes even multiple writers for a single book, and really don’t supervise them.
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Hey, stop giving away trade secrets!
I don’t think I’ve ever had continuity fuck-ups that rose that that level, though I did once deliberately undo a decision I’d made in book 1 of a series because I didn’t like the way it was playing out. I fessed up and said, yeah, I made a mistake. YA readers are often reading for ‘canon’, they can pay very close attention. and will absolutely bust you. If we had errors like that in Animorphs we’d still be hearing about it.
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FWIW, I think canon is way over emphasized. Sometimes it traps creators into dead-end decisions. I have no problem with an author saying, “I decided to go in a different direction in this book”. On the other hand, sloppy mistakes breaks mimesis for me.
One of the most (stealth) famous examples of this is when Bilbo engages in a battle of wits with gollum and he ends up with the One Ring. The original tale didn’t match what he wanted to do in the Lord of the Rings, so he rewrote it, and has Bilbo allude to changing things when describing his writings in the beginning of LotR
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