Randomness thread, part two.

[Poopadoop]

Some classic Frankie destroying the audience.

[OngBonga]

Just bought myself a milbro explorer air rifle, pretty much the most powerful weapon I can legally own. Just fired its first shots, I'm not a bad shot for a total amateur. I'll get a photo of it later for you yanks to laugh at.

[boost]

Just bought myself a milbro explorer air rifle, pretty much the most powerful weapon I can legally own. Just fired its first shots, I'm not a bad shot for a total amateur. I'll get a photo of it later for you yanks to laugh at.

Nice-- is it an air rifle or spring rifle? I could only find spring explorers. I had a nice spring rifle some time back, they're tons of fun for target practice and you legit can hunt small game with a .22 spring rifle.

[OngBonga]

It's a spring powered air rifle. It's definitely sufficient for basic hunting, I'd take out a pheasant with it so long as the bastard stays still.

Can't find my camera, but it's one of these...

[gabe]

one of the most legendary threads on the internet but has it passed randomness thread part 1 yet? lukie holla

[Poopadoop]

Lol at this guy, and this subreddit in general.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAssho...e_inheritance/

[OngBonga]

Would I be an asshole if I took legal action against my grieving wife in a futile attempt to take control of her inheritance?

Troll.

[Poopadoop]

The best part of it, if true, is that he's going to end up paying a lawyer to tell him his wife doesn't have to share the money with him if she doesn't want to.

This is how murder plots get started.

[boost]

one of the most legendary threads on the internet but has it passed randomness thread part 1 yet? lukie holla

Legendary cameo.

Sup Gabe?

[boost]

Lol at this guy, and this subreddit in general.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAssho...e_inheritance/

wow, this sub is wild. I could waste way too much time here.

[Poopadoop]

About every third title is extremely enticing I must admit.

(AITA = Am I the asshole...)

AITA for working from my car in a parking lot because my wife is having my MIL stay with us

AITA for telling my MIL that she should be happy when her daughter dies?

AITA for refusing to forgive my sperm donor?

[CoccoBill]

Why do many people think it's more human to act like an animal? Like, you should choose your companion with your heart, not your head. Which select their mates by logic, animals or humans (yes I know, humans are animals). It's "human" to act on your instincts. It's better to "go with your gut". Silly humans.

[MadMojoMonkey]

The notion that you should chose your mate based on love is less than 100 years old.
It's largely a Hollywood construct, but it's not fair to put all the blame on Hollywood. Marriage is big industry, and appealing to people's emotions is effective advertising.

Throughout most of history, the notion that you would find love for your mate was kinda a nice perk when it happened, but not the point of the arrangement at all.

Another recent development is the notion that love "lasts forever."

Again, throughout most of history love was seen as just another fleeting emotion, and certainly nothing to make life-changing permanent decisions around.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Romeo and Juliet was a cautionary tale, after all.
Two "star-crossed" lovers. I.e. 2 people who went against the natural order of things - they went against their stars - against their fate.

The 2 end up dead.

[CoccoBill]

I agree completely. So wtf happened, I'm sort of thinking this is some humanism/individualism gone awry. Humanism is all about everyone's feelings counting.

[MadMojoMonkey]

A lot of things came together. Many different industries stand to gain from the current state of marriage, and those industries cultivated the image to be what it is today.

Adam Ruins Everything - Marriage
I just grabbed a YouTube clip, but for the style of the show, it actually supplies references for a lot of the info it throws out.





Actually, that cuts off before he gets to the history of love, but I'm sure you can find other videos if this one strikes your fancy.

[CoccoBill]

I don't disagree, but I think we're getting sidetracked. Yes I put choosing your companion out as the first example, but that was just what first popped in my mind. Similar thinking is applied everywhere. In stories throughout time love (a feeling) conquers all. What makes us human is our feelings, not that we can think critically and analyze. Robots and computers are "inhuman", because they lack the lizard brain. Makes no sense to me. Why don't we celebrate the things that actually set us apart from other animals, and use those as metrics to strive for.

[MadMojoMonkey]

In stories throughout time love (a feeling) conquers all.

@underline: Is that really true, though? Show me.
The story needs to be over 100 years old.

It's not like I've read every book, and not much from over 100 years ago, so I'm not firmly saying I'm right on this. I just heard some "facts" and I've heard them more than once. Sometimes that doesn't mean anything, because a bogus source was widely disseminated.

So, yeah... a lot of our current-day notions about love and "what's always been" is really just a bunch of stuff that didn't exist in our culture before 60 years ago. The rise of industrialization then communication has changed everything about our daily lives.

What makes us human is our feelings, not that we can think critically and analyze.

Nah, it's both and so much more. Everything we are is relevant.

You can't pick and choose which aspects of you are more you than others. Not sensibly, anyway, IMO.

Why don't we celebrate the things that actually set us apart from other animals, and use those as metrics to strive for.

Because it's sometimes just veiled bigotry to say that the human attributes that you like are the good ones and people that express other attributes are the "unevolved" people.

... and because I think we're definitely doing what you suggest. We have entire institutions dedicated to enabling and celebrating human achievement. They exist in every human society I know of. They're called schools, businesses, governments, etc. All of them just one form of expressing human greatness.

There no winner in a contest between art, science, and religion over what is more human. They're all strikingly human.

Or am I completely missing your point?

[CoccoBill]

I've just run into people who think like that way too often, and those sentiments aren't hard to find in popular culture. Maybe it's a recent thing, which could actually then coincide with the modern humanism movement. Just annoys me to no end since it makes no sense. Intuition, emotions and feelings are romanticized and considered what makes us human, just watch any sci-fi with androids or whatever. Yet those are the exact things we share with other animals.

Of course it's not what all people think all the time, but no one should think that at any time. I might have also been a bit drunk when I posted that last night.

[MadMojoMonkey]

"We all know that art is not the truth, it's a lie that reveals truth."
-Pablo Picasso, among others

Try not to get too hung up on the morals expressed in a fiction story. They represent a bias in the author / director / whatever more than anything. To the extent that bias makes other people feel good about themselves, it's popular.

It's just that popular is not a synonym for correct or moral.


We're all people, though. Whether some of us glorify trusting our gut, and others of us glorify intellectual decision-making isn't any more or less human.

The notion that humans and animals are on opposite ends of some moral spectrum is odd to me.

I don't follow the criticism that it's a negative for humans to expresses life-enabling attributes which are also expressed elsewhere in the universe.
It's cool that we stand out from other species on this planet as much as we do, but it's not like the fact that we stand out makes us better or worse than those other species.

[MadMojoMonkey]

So bye bye Singapore and Shanghai
Tried to get there, but they severed international ties.
The Covid came. We kissed all travel goodbye.
Hoping this wont be the way that we die.

[Poopadoop]

People here have lost their fuckng minds.

[Poopadoop]

Seriously lost their minds.

[oskar]

That conga line with sound is one of the most anxiety inducing things i've seen in a while: https://twitter.com/MerseyHack/statu...58842680254465

If I lived on that street I'd start packing up that instance... and not because of the virus. Covid19 is the only silver lining there.

[oskar]

Finally some good news!

[Poopadoop]

It must be nice to be that oblivious to reality (until you catch a deadly virus, that is).

[OngBonga]

That conga line with sound is one of the most anxiety inducing things i've seen in a while: https://twitter.com/MerseyHack/statu...58842680254465

If I lived on that street I'd start packing up that instance... and not because of the virus. Covid19 is the only silver lining there.

It's funny, I watched it and thought it looked like Birkenhead, which is easily the most depressing place in the UK I've been to. Turns out it's the other side of the river in Warrington. Never been there and hope never to.

I'd move out because it's Merseyside.

[MadMojoMonkey]

The further out into space we look, the further into the past we see.

But the universe is expanding, and has been for billions of years.

So what we see when we look further and further away is the inside surface of ever decreasingly sized spheres.

The further away we look, the smaller the universe we see.


Just madness.

[CoccoBill]

Anyone see trends?

[daven]

i remembered my login
living the dream
assuming some really weird substance ingestion before bed

also, check out my bee truck ha
Wintering_down_taranaki_hives_may_2020.jpg

[oskar]

I'm surprised the FBI went after this guy. It's kind of an open secret, and by that I mean no secret at all that senators and congressmen have an inexplicable, and by inexplicable I mean explicable - affinity for IPO shares which fate they have the power to vote on.
Nancy Pelosi be like "The...ya... I don't know what your point is!"

[oskar]

i remembered my login
living the dream
assuming some really weird substance ingestion before bed

also, check out my bee truck ha
Wintering_down_taranaki_hives_may_2020.jpg

Neat mountain!
How many times have you gotten stung this season?

[MadMojoMonkey]

also, check out my bee truck ha
Wintering_down_taranaki_hives_may_2020.jpg

Dude! Long time, no post. How you doing these days?

How many hives do you keep?
Any trouble with murder hornets?

That's a beautiful photo. What mountain is that?


We're vainly trying to pull together a corona WW game. You down?
(I promise I'll only call you dozer once or twice, for old times' sake.)

[OngBonga]

Daven! Nice to know covid hasn't got you yet.

Ima try and guess the mountain, don't tell mojo yet. Fun little game for me!

[OngBonga]

Mount Hood, Oregon.

[OngBonga]

Ok I'm bored. If it's not Mount Hood, I give up.

[CoccoBill]

https://ifinsomecataclysm.com/index.html

[MadMojoMonkey]

"If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?"

It is only through diligently trying to disprove an idea, and failing to do so, that we can have any hope the idea is correct.

[daven]

Neat mountain!
How many times have you gotten stung this season?

seems like I've been stung a lot less frequently this season. I've managed to avoid having to do much beekeeping on cold and rainy days, that's normally when things get a little hectic. A few hundred times maybe?

edit: I've got a dozen hives if i include a couple that i do my civic volunteer duty looking after on behalf of a community project, scattered around a few sites. This pic is in Taranaki, New Zealand - the mountain is Mt. Taranaki - looks a bit like Fuji from a few angles, which resulted in nz being the filming location for The Last Samurai years back.

Japanese hornets haven't made it to NZ, i took a few pics of them while travelling in Japan a couple of years ago, showed them to some nz beekeepers asking if i should be worried about these "strange bees" i found, calmed them down with the truth after their initial panic...

sent a pm re werewolf. Although corona hasn't got me, it has resulted in me working from home - and likely to continue doing so through until mid-June = a weird kind of more spare time. Like everywhere, NZ's response to the virus has been controversial. About 5% of the population have now been tested at least once, it's thought that all cases are now known, and that there isn't community transmission happening. We basically went into lockdown the day that case numbers jumped from 150 -> 200, pretty early on.

[oskar]

... a small price to pay for that sweet sweet honey.

[OngBonga]

Oh yeah daven is NZ. Ok so Mount Hood was wrong.

Back on it.

[OngBonga]

Mount Taranaki

[OngBonga]

I'm so full of shit. I saw it in his post. I can't lie to you guys, not unless we're playing ww.

Or if I'm trolling poop.

[OngBonga]

"If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?"

The speed of light is constant for all observers.

[CoccoBill]

"If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?"

It is only through diligently trying to disprove an idea, and failing to do so, that we can have any hope the idea is correct.

I don't dislike the answer, obviously a key part of all knowledge and understanding. I really like the question, a nice way to distill the key parts of them. Personally I like Feynman's original one maybe best, but things alluding to evolution or electromagnetism or quantum theory seem interesting too, depending on what you expect from the readers.

[OngBonga]

We have a "cute animals and fluffy things" thread in the moderators section that you riff raff don't have access to. Hope you're jealous.

[MadMojoMonkey]

[OngBonga]

I love that scene in Fight Club where Leonardo Di Caprio Gets beaten to a pulp.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I love that scene in Fight Club where Leonardo Di Caprio Gets beaten to a pulp.

Haha. Yeah... then he's all "Adddrrrriiiiaaaaannnn!!!!"

[Poopadoop]

lol this guy is great.

[OngBonga]

He's a less likable and somewhat stupider version of Steve Irwin. Entertaining though.

[OngBonga]

You'd think a mole would only take one shot.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Lol. Have you gone so feral that you're shooting moles, now?

[OngBonga]

They're a pest, they dig up the lawn and kill the grass. But it didn't feel good. I think if it was a rat I'd have been pleased with myself, but moles are cute and if it wasn't for the fact they destroy the lawn they'd be ok. The rabbits are safe, we have bunnies munching on the grass right now. We had a mink, too, but I think it might have seen us shooting at targets and we haven't seen it since. It might be a bit smarter than the mole.

[MadMojoMonkey]

lol
You brits and your guns.

[Poopadoop]

My favourite part of these videos is when he's rolling around on the ground screaming and the guy asks him "what are you feeling now?"

[jackvance]

The speed of light is constant for all observers.

Less catchy but I'd go with E=mc2 or energy = mass x (light speed)squared

[OngBonga]

I thought about E-mc2, but what do you do with that if you're Aristotle?

[MadMojoMonkey]

If you're going to go with Einstein, then probably don't use an approximation like E = mc2

E^2 = (mc^2)^2 + (pc)^2

It's only when p = 0 that E = mc^2

That is, when the momentum is 0, i.e. the object is at rest.

[jackvance]

Well I did not know that!

[MadMojoMonkey]

It's kinda like the Pythagorean theorem in the way it looks.

Here's a 2 minute video with nice graphics to link those 2 concepts.

[OngBonga]

If blackface is racist, does that mean cross dressing is sexist?

[oskar]

The Onion is the only real news:

https://local.theonion.com/police-of...kne-1828134142
https://www.theonion.com/minneapolis...-er-1843684669
https://www.theonion.com/black-man-b...sht-1819579259

[oskar]

o7

https://www.theonion.com/protestors-...-fo-1843735351

[oskar]

Haven't I always said: if you want change, you have to set shit on fire? Haven't I always said that? I believe I've always said that.






https://twitter.com/farhad_fza/statu...435179525?s=20

https://twitter.com/MarvinBaron6/sta...925782016?s=20

https://twitter.com/theelovelylaya/s...825818112?s=20

https://twitter.com/Kayleichappel/st...609356805?s=20

(sorry, MMM)

[OngBonga]

You know what cops fear more than riots? Prison.

[Poopadoop]

^ holy shit

edit: i mean that for Oscar's post. Those people are seriously pissed.

[oskar]

aftermath:
https://twitter.com/Stone_Marley/sta...317615104?s=20

[oskar]

You know what cops fear more than riots? Prison.

The most striking image for me are the dozens of cops surrounding the house of the murderer protecting him from protestors... instead of you know, arresting the murderer. That these cops even show up for that speaks volumes about their mentality. That would be the day to call in sick if you're not a completely corrupted piece of shit.

[OngBonga]

If he's not under arrest, then of course he needs protecting. If the baying mob get hold of him, this will escalate rapidly. But yeah, he should be under arrest. I've got no problem with him being held in a cell in a station, while being given better treatment by his colleagues than they might perhaps show me, I kinda get that, but they should protect him by putting him in a cell until he's tried.

With that said, and while the reaction is understandable, it's also not something any reasonable person should condone.

[oskar]

With that said, and while the reaction is understandable, it's also not something any reasonable person should condone.

I disagree. I think the BLM protests from 2014 onwards were peaceful to a fault. They accomplished nothing. There is a price associated with not acting, and it is much greater than the cost of acting. As just about every extrajudicial killing of a black or poor person since 2014 has shown, police get away with it. Eric Garners killers are free. The cops that beat beat Kelly Thomas to death got acquitted and them smashing that guys head in until it looked like a watermelon until he died in the street was ruled "appropriate force" by a jury. The ex cop that killed Ahmaud Arbery wasn't even prosecuted until months later when the footage of the execution was released to the media...

I'm honestly surprised this hasn't happened sooner. I think it is necessary, and the sooner the better because the US is absolutely heading for a civil war and protests like this are not a catalyst, they're an off-ramp. There is a chance for police reform now. Without this level of outrage nothing will happen, and we know that because nothing has happened.

[Poopadoop]

I've got no problem with him being held in a cell in a station.

The station's on fire...

[oskar]

good point

[OngBonga]

The station's on fire...

They only have one station in the entire state? Ask another state then.

[OngBonga]

I disagree. I think the BLM protests from 2014 onwards were peaceful to a fault. They accomplished nothing. There is a price associated with not acting, and it is much greater than the cost of acting. As just about every extrajudicial killing of a black or poor person since 2014 has shown, police get away with it. Eric Garners killers are free. The cops that beat beat Kelly Thomas to death got acquitted and them smashing that guys head in until it looked like a watermelon until he died in the street was ruled "appropriate force" by a jury. The ex cop that killed Ahmaud Arbery wasn't even prosecuted until months later when the footage of the execution was released to the media...

I'm honestly surprised this hasn't happened sooner. I think it is necessary, and the sooner the better because the US is absolutely heading for a civil war and protests like this are not a catalyst, they're an off-ramp. There is a chance for police reform now. Without this level of outrage nothing will happen, and we know that because nothing has happened.

I agree that civil war is looming in USA, but I think this could be the catalyst. The problem with direct action is that the police can respond with justifiable brutality. It can only escalate the situation. But you're right, doing nothing doesn't solve the problem either.

I'd be more on their side if they were just setting fire to cop shops and not Wendy's and whatnot.