what i'm reading§
What We Are Seeking - Cameron Reed§
"No. If I want to be pregnant I only have to think about it in a certain way, and sperm is delivered to the cervix by a tube created for that purpose. It doesn't exit, as you put it, and nothing is passed transluminally."
I've never been into the space-opera format with interstellar battleships and aliens that are palette-swapped humans. I'm much more interested in speculation and human drama, like How will societies operate in dome-habitats on Mars (Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars trilogy)? and What kind of sex results from intergalactic, inter-species exchange (Samuel R. Delaney, Stars In Our Pocket Like Grains of Sand)?
What We Are Seeking understood the assignment. Pages upon pages are dedicated to detailing the strange life cycles flora/fauna, to the intricacies of language from other planets, and to the joys of cooking stir-fry. The most typical sci-fi moments happen in the framework of linguistic analysis; its drama is global and local-- structural forces light-years away manifest in the most intimate settings. The key question of the novel is who is the "we" in What We Are Seeking?
what i'm listening to§
"The Datacenter Does Not Exist: AI & Exocapitalism"§
I was struck by how the tactics alleged by the Exocapitalism authors as being deployed by the largest companies in the world are identical to the scams of Wealth LARPers (404 Media). Each party flaunts the appearance of wealth to gain trust-- it doesn't matter that it's not real, that the get-rich-quick class is a meaningless PDF, that the Datacenter never breaks ground. The goal is to "lift" away from the rabble of 'labor' as much as possible and ascend to the pure abstract realm of exchanging larger and larger mind-boggling illiquid sums.
An important detail in the above 404 Media report is that the fake dashboards used by the Wealth scammers (who are themselves being scammed by the designers of the dashboards) aren't for bank accounts and investment portfolios, but for platforms like Stripe and OnlyFans; the rationalization being that any 'wagecel' can stuff a bank account, but parlaying a web platform into big paydays has RoI aura-- low-effort content creation asymptotically approaching the level of passive income.
Bleak! Bleak! Bleak!
what i'm watching§
Santo en El vampiro y el sexo (1969/2011)§
These are the type of pulls that make me love my local indie theater. It was presented in a Mystery Science Theater 3000-style format where a panel of local schmoes talked over the film. As cringey as that sounds, it was a hoot.
And the premise begs for riffing: A masked luchador (Santo) invents a time machine which sends his sexy lady friend back in time to be ravaged by Dracula. There's lots of fondling of boobs and inexplicable gymnastics. The middle of the film is devoted to a full three rounds of wrestling, wherein Santo and a secondary antagonist duel for the other's half of Dracula's treasure. Does the crowd hollering in the stands understand the stakes[1]? Probably not.
Originally released as Santo en el tesoro de Drácula in 1969, it was later discovered two versions of the film had been made: the G-rated black-and-white cut, and a full-color adult cut for the European market. Locked in a vault and its initial premiere suppressed by Santo's estate, the adult-rated cut was finally released in 2011-- with support from Guillermo Del Toro.[2]
There may be as many as 6 other 'sexy' cuts of Santo movies-- but I think it's a safe bet that out of Santo's 53(!) feature films, more than a few of them got frisky.
what i'm working on§
Frontend stuff§
Whyyyyy does MDN say the Houdini API paint() function accepts arbitrary arguments when ZERO browsers have actually implemented that feature.
something i liked§
macchiato§
After having no choice but straight-up espresso shots in Italy, I've started preferring it as my afternoon pick-me-up. Unadulterated shots are delicious, but a macchiato is just heavenly. I feel so fancy sipping on my stupid little paper cup.
something i hated§
tenesmus§
My therapist liked my theory that my recent bout of tenesmus is actually a kind of Freudian substitute for masturbation as an inverse to my arrested anal phase. But I should probably still see a doctor.
a picture:§
old thing§
