Meet the very clever people who think our world is a simulation
With the release of the fourth Matrix film this week, the idea behind the original movie is once again being talked about. The notion that the “real world” is a computer-generated simulation was considered pure science fiction when the original film was released in 1999, but philosophers have long argued that there are good arguments to suggest we could very well be.
In their interview with Elon Musk that debuted Tuesday evening, the Babylon Bee boys brought the funny, as expected. But what viewers might not anticipate is just how many compelling, thoughtful answers their questions managed to elicit from the billionaire.
Everywhere we turn these days we see evil in action. It was always thus, but in the current social, political, and medical environment it seems especially prominent. We observe a pandemic that has caused global and historically immense damage and devastation, a cataclysm of biblical proportions. We see governments, official agencies, and corporate consortiums that have fed the public with lies and misinformation as to the origins, causes, and cures of the plague…
The Lord of the Rings is more than nostalgic medievalism
It’s exactly 20 years since I stood in line to see a film I had dreamed about since I was a little boy. Ever since I had first turned the pages of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, I had wondered what it would be like to see it on the big screen: the hobbits, the battles, the sweeping landscapes, the blood and thunder. When I read that the director Peter Jackson was filming a trilogy of Tolkien’s masterpiece in New Zealand, I felt almost sick with anxiety. Would it be terrible? Would they sound like the All Blacks? What were they going to do about Tom Bombadil?
Full disclosure – huge fan.
We have abandoned the taboos that held us together
A century ago, as the Great War raged, Oswald Spengler wrote that “Western mankind, without exception, is under the influence of an immense optical illusion.” The Decline of the West, Spengler’s grand, ambitious, poetic theory of Western downfall — well underway, in his telling, by the time he began writing — has had its followers, detractors and imitators ever since. It has also, in recent years, had something of a renaissance.
Decline is in the air, mingling with the smoke of burning forests in Greece and the shocking footage coming out of Afghanistan. Much of what Spengler wrote about the West’s dissolution — which he predicted would make itself fully known in the 21st century — has proven prescient, and he hadn’t even heard of climate change or the Taliban. You would have to have a strong will — the kind which old Oswald admired — to deny, as nations angrily fragment, the gulf stream stutters, the supply chains choke up, that he might have been onto something.
It was a monitor issue!
I have a snazzy new BenQ 27″ that has what may be the best monitor stand I have ever had the pleasure of using. This was on sale for 249.00 bucks, 150 off they say. Nice picture.
Thank God it wasn’t the graphics card. The sales rep said they can’t get cards, or if they do it is one at a time and immediately sold.
If nothing else this has taught me to gear up with some back up equipment.
Thank you all for your help!
Our friend Neo from Halls of Macadamia had a close call.
He is doing OK after a stent implant to relieve a blockage and will be home soon.
Black and white America alike suffer from the failure of functional older men to socialize younger men
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, my stepfather worked as an auto mechanic in Upstate New York, at a ‘youth camp’ nestled in a pine forest. The bucolic sobriquet was a euphemism; this ‘camp’ was a medium-security pre-prison of sorts for boys 14-17, mostly from New York City, sent up following precocious encounters with the law. These youthful offenders were not the worst of the worst. Boys implicated in rape, murder or similarly terrifying offenses were assigned elsewhere, to compounds with barbed wire and armed guards.
Note – This post is a sticky new posts will appear below.
Hello everyone.
Thank you all for sustaining me through this worst of years.
Your love of Kathy and Mom along with your kind words and prayers have had an immeasurably positive effect on my ability to cope.
Since lockdown restrictions have been eased to a reasonable degree I have been able to make funeral arrangements.
Kathy will be laid to rest in early September, I will announce the time and place as the day draws near for those wishing to attend. Mom will be laid to rest in August.
Western civilization may not be perfect, we haven’t seen anything like it anywhere else in human history
‘Western civilization would be a good idea,’ joked Mahatma Gandhi, one of its most successful pupils. We are accustomed to hearing what is wrong with Western civilization: racism, sexism, colonialism and (gasp) capitalism. The world would be a kind of utopia, we are told, if only we could purge these sins from our societies. But if Western civilization is evil, what is the alternative? Four other -isms vie for our attention.
A very bad year.
Took my brother in to a vascular specialist today, he had what amounts to a full body ultrasound. The good news is they will not have to amputate his toe, yet.
He suffered a series of silent heart attacks. They left him so damaged that surgery of any kind was ruled out.
He is in palliative care at home, his body is literally shutting down.
Now blind in one eye and his face drooping on one side as if from a stroke the few steps from his front door to my car exhausted him.
We used Mom’s wheelchair to get him about once downtown.
We speak once a week by phone, he is remarkably stoic as is his wife.
He fatigues so easily that sometimes he begins to fall asleep while we chat. Of course that may speak volumes about my skills as a conversationalist.
They are arranging a hospital bed for his use at home as he has chosen to end his days there.
Earlier this month I felt a dark cloud descending and then it dawned on me that 6 months had passed since Kathy passed away. 4 months for Mom.
It isn’t that I forget, I think of them both every day, it’s just that the passage of time seems so out of sync now.
Kathy’s birthday was in May.
We always celebrated April 1st as well, our first date.
June 25th will be our wedding anniversary.
Birthdays, anniversaries, and all those wonderful little events and traditions that made up and anchored our life together will always be remembered and quietly, wistfully celebrated.
Nomadland took best picture but #Vanlife has been around for years, get past the opportunistic Instant Instagram Influencers and you can find the people who are serious about their choices.
This Toronto couple lives in one year round.
I have become very curious about Van Life, going so far as to read about building an off-grid electrical system capable of powering induction cooktops, a refrigerator and even a microwave if desired, and incidentals like your laptop, phone etc. Also been wondering about heating and busted water pipes in our winters because I would want a full on board shower set up with hot and cold running water. And there do seem to be solutions.
This guy “Humble Roads” does higher end conversions, you can see a good overview of one of his completed vans below, his channel is very good with excellent instructionals, the New Jersey Outdoor Adventures Channel has a ton of conversion walk through video tours from high end to low.
There is a ton of info on the web. From installation instructionals to vehicle selection. At the High End is the Mercedes Sprinter (pic below, older model), followed by the Ford Transit models and the Dodge Promaster and everyone else. The interiors can be impressive if you want to spend the money. I think weight, durability and performance would be my primary concerns.
It wasn’t long after he arrived in the irradiated landscape of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone that Bogdan realised his new job came with some unexpected companions. From his first days as a checkpoint guard in Chernobyl, he has shared the place with a pack of dogs.
Bogdan (not his real name) is now in his second year of working in the zone and has got to know the dogs well. Some have names, some don’t. Some stay nearby, others remain detached – they come and go as they please. Bogdan and the other guards feed them, offer them shelter, and occasionally give them medical care. They bury them when they die.
It’s 3 months since Kathy left us. A month for Mum.
I try every day to keep myself occupied and some days I succeed better than others.
I have donated Kathy’s and Mum’s clothes and am starting to sort through stored items. Neither task was welcomed but it’s not all in sadness.
Here’s a throwback pic of a pic. I believe taken in Hamilton where we attended a function of some sort, perhaps a wedding. It was stored in one of Kathy’s trunks along with a slew of items we packed away from her old apartment when we moved to the condo.
Kathy and I had been dating for just under a year when I was offered a transfer and promotion to manage the Vancouver office of the firm I worked for.
I said yes and Kathy and I promised one another we would maintain a long distance relationship.
That first summer away Kath came to visit for a month. I took some vacation and we explored BC and Washington state.
The day came when Kath had to head home and we said our goodbyes at the airport. The longing I felt on arriving back at my empty apartment has stayed fresh all these years.
Whenever Kathy and I had a fight which was rare despite her furious rep I would remember that day. Over the years it became a sort of touchstone for why our relationship was so right and worthwhile.
A little over two years later I quit my job. Kathy said come home and from the day I turned up on her doorstep we rarely spent more than 2 or 3 days apart.
We were good for each other and when we weren’t we patched things up knowing we were in it for the long haul and both of us better off for it.
When Kathy was diagnosed with cancer that longing, that memory of her parting returned. I felt selfish and told her that it was the first thought that sprang to mind but she understood.
Nothing prepares you for what Kath went through, for what we both went through.
She told me often how happy she was to wake up in recovery after her major surgery and see my smiling face.
And I remember the joy we shared when the doctor declared her “disease free” and also the dread when 3 months later Kathy noticed those familiar “pains” had returned.
Kathy was robbed one by one of life’s little pleasures. That’s what cancer does, it steals from you and your loved ones.
I’m not sure if I will ever watch another episode of CSI: Las Vegas.
Between Christmas and New Year a 24/7 marathon was on.
By then Kathy could only be semi-comfortable in the Lazy Boy so I slept on the couch and we watched every season together, falling asleep in fits and starts throughout the day and night.
My days were spent feeding her as best I could even though it became more futile with each passing day, giving her injections and otherwise trying, hoping to be some sort of useful.
But I learned what it means to be truly powerless, to know that nothing can be done to save the one you love.
To watch her fade away before my eyes.
To grow so weak she could no longer walk.
To bathe her in the morning lifting each weakened limb and feeling virtually no resistance.
To watch as she struggled with anguish and fear that I could not in any way assuage.
She pointed and I packed her clothes for her the trip to the hospice scheduled for Friday morning January 8th.
Her condition turned critical that morning just as the hospice transport arrived, they, against protocol, called 911 and the medics revived her so Kathy was to admitted to a local hospital.
Kathy smiled and waved as she watched me being made Covid proof in the ER outside her room.
We were granted a few more hours more together and I will always be grateful for that.
Kathy passed away the next morning.
I miss her every single day.
These last few days have been a bit more trying given I am sorting through our life together and I just felt a need to write something down, to vent a little.
Last night my niece texted me. She lost her husband to cancer not long before Christmas.
I found out She still talks to Kim just as I still talk to Kathy.
We agreed they have a way of lifting us when we are down.
As for Buddy and me, well we are managing best we can. He’s a good little guy. Likes ham a lot.
