SwingingTheLamp

No, it’s just a subtle illusion. My guess is that the visual cortex processes simple shapes first, and then fills in color, so it processes the border quickly, and the complex, color image of the frog more slowly. When I shake the screen, the image of the frog seems to lag behind the motion of the border ever so slightly. It took me a while to notice the effect.

That flow chart is pure, concentrated evil. At least now I know that zero is: dash-dash-dash-dash-dash-dash-dash-dash-dash-dash-dash-dash-dash-dash-dit.

Agreed! Worse, when I try to spell my name over the phone with the NATO alphabet, people just kind of mentally vapor lock. I guess they can’t work out what letter “papa” represents? And, then, when I use the conventional “p as in Paul,” sometimes they copy down b, as in ball.

Mississippi law allows ballots that are postmarked by election day, if they’re delivered within 5 business days. They can’t calculate the final count until the 10th.

You may be interested in seeing a report of what happens when bicyclists do just that .

Remember: Every accusation is a confession with that cult. Humans are not telepathic, so we can’t know what’s in anybody else’s mind. We can only guess at others’ motivations by analogy to what’s in our own heads. So when they hyperventilate about weird, sexual stuff that’s forced on them…

Well, hell, there are enough headlines about it that I think I don’t need to spell out the conclusion here.

I’m pretty sure that Mitch McConnell is human, but the battery in the control device that they implanted in his brain was failing. (And now has failed.) That’s why they switched to putting one of their own in an ill-fitting human suit, and calling him “Ted” Cruz. Pretty sure they’re reptilians, which is why that volunteer has to engage in behavioral thermoregulation.

More convenient. The polling place is on the way to work, a few blocks from my house. The early voting locations are much further away. I have a friend who volunteers at a polling place every election, and he’s explained the procedure to me: Even if I voted in-person absentee (i.e. early), they keep my ballot sealed until election day, then it has to be transported to my polling place, and an election volunteer has to physically walk it through the same process of consulting the voter book, and placing it in the scanner.

It’s not quite the same, of course. I was behind one of these volunteers this morning, and he located a long list of voters in the book, rather than doing it one at a time. But, at the bottom line, my ballot has to be physically cast at my polling place on election day by somebody. So why not go do it myself?

Not this crap again.

Dustin Hoffman was 30 years old in The Graduate (1967). Sean Connery looked like he could’ve been 30 in his high school yearbook photo. There have always been baby-faced actors, and actors who look older than their age. We could just as easily compare Dick van Dyke at age 30 in 1955 with Bill Skarsgård at age 30 in 2021, and reach similar conclusions about the effects of, say, highly-processed food and microplastics.

I find the whole history fascinating. European aristocracy adopted heeled shoes from the Mongols, and drastically increased the height of them. The whole point was that they were poorly adapted to everyday life, and signaled that the wearer had enough wealth and status to be idle and wear impractical things. Women adopted the fashion, and the heels on their shoes got slimmer, and the shoes got curvier. Then men stopped wearing heels, which were by then seen as delicate, fragile, and effete. Y’know, feminine traits.

The women-as-beauty-objects theme came back when early, 19th century photographers had the models wear heeled shoes in the erotica / pornography they started producing. Those shoes weren’t practical at all for standing or walking, but the models, uh, didn’t need to stand up. It wasn’t until the advent of cheap steel in the 20th century that the stiletto heel became structurally sound enough to walk on.

I just find it so bizarre that the high-heeled shoe is practically a torture device, and a historical symbol of female disempowerment and status as merely a sex object, and so many women adore them! It’s also strange how they made the transition from porn to office wear.

Oh, four fucks ache!

Huh. As an atheist, I’ve always heard the argument that the universe is far too complex to have just happened on its own, and that God was the maker. Which makes no sense to me, because God is complex enough to make the universe, and God just happened.

Actually, upon reflection, this explanation makes more sense to me, that God is a part of the universe and created humans. I may not share what belief, but it’s interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Then who or what determined what is possible?

I get that part, since more is possible than I can do, but God is the one who decides and creates what is possible, so he should be able to do anything whatsoever.

I can do everything that’s possible for me. Am I omnipotent?

Seriously? I’ll call him President when he acts like one.