Caine wrote about a tragic incident in which a cop shot a volunteer to death, because they used a real gun in a training exercise, and – it was loaded. That’s incredibly stupid, especially since you can get really nice poly rubber training guns on Amazon.com for $25.
And then I remembered stories about prisoners carving guns out of soap to try to fool guards into freeing them.. ..
This is another wonderful, beautiful artifact that you can get on ebay or amazon’s rare book search for not a huge amount of money (between $25 and $250). It’s a great gift if you know someone with goth sensibilities…
I’m a fan of the fundamentally flawed category of games known as “space sandbox” – Elite Dangerous and No Man’s Sky are the current two leaders, with Star Citizen in a state of apparent endless alpha test. I hope someone eventually writes a book about the making of Star Citizen, though I fear it will be like “Hearts of Darkness” for gaming.
Atheism, we are told, breaks all social ties. Without belief in God, what becomes of the sacredness of the oath?
Jean Meslier
The defining mark of the state is authority, the right to rule. The primary obligation of man is autonomy, the refusal to be ruled. It would seem, then, the there can be no resolution of the conflict between the autonomy of the individual and the putative authority of the state.
Today I took a close close look at the corn.
Since I’m pretty allergic to corn pollen, it was definitely a bad idea.
I’m skeptical of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, hypnosis, and other tricks of mental manipulation involving triggers, rythms, repeating phrases, rhymes, etc. But I enjoy watching Derren Brown’s performances because I wonder how much is stage “magic” and how much is mentalist tricks. My guess is, it’s mostly stage magic.
So, when I saw this I thought it was very interesting because it’s somewhat similar to the kind of treatment Brown supposedly uses on his subjects.
Voltaire by Houdon
Prejudice is an opinion without judgement. Thus all over Earth we inspire in children all the opinions we want before they become able to judge them.
The first rule of Fight Club is: Warner Brothers may send you a “cease and desist” letter if you do something Fight Club related.
I don’t intend to try to post stuff every day. I’ve been posting a lot of stuff because I’ve had time and stuff to say.
I may occasionally get busy and have work, house guests, travel days, whatever, and not post as much for a while. If that happens, don’t break out the champagne and canapes, yet, I’ll be back.
I’m assuming you’d rather I don’t post “I’m going to be blah blah blah Chicago blah blah” all the time. You don’t care about my personal life, nor should you. I just don’t want you to see me fall silent, start rejoicing, and then be bitterly crushed by disappointment.
Besides, I may fall silent long enough to write and publish “The Strategic Genius’ Guide to Dating ${preferred_gender}” It’ll depend on whether I can get Chuck Tingle to write the forward or not.