the_af

19 ms·

391.
by the_af 6mo ago
Don't know about the leadership, but a quick googling tells me about 25% of the US military identify as Catholic. That's not nothing...
392.
by the_af 6mo ago
You have a point. Maybe if I hadn't read the story first it would work better for me. In the story, there's little doubt these are aliens (though their physical form, if they have any, is never described). If there's any doub
393.
by the_af 6mo ago
Tom Noonan in the short film, yes. > He’s dressed like someone told “hey you have to try to blend in” and didn’t really know how. Blend with what ? It (the alien) didn't believe these "meat" sentient beings existed when
394.
by the_af 6mo ago
> And they do say they’ve studied and probed for several human lifetimes. Only one of them has. The other is entirely surprised by the whole concept, and wouldn't even entertain disguising itself as something it has never consider
395.
by the_af 6mo ago
> I thought it was satirising faux-intellectual SF short stories that try to seem deeper than they are. If it’s just an actual faux-intellectual SF short story, that’s much less interesting. I think it's neither. It's a humor
396.
by the_af 6mo ago
> Do they already know what meat is? Yes, they do: > "“Maybe they’re like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.”" What they cannot fathom is a sentient lifeform that achieves
397.
by the_af 6mo ago
> See "The great silence" by Ted Chiang I found this short story very moving. Of course, it's designed on purpose for this. But Chiang is usually so cerebral it caught me by surprise.
398.
by the_af 6mo ago
> What is it satirizing? I think it's (partly) satirizing how we feel about ourselves as the apex beings, and as explorers of the cosmos and colonizers. What if we are actually quite subpar, and the actual apex beings in the uni
399.
by the_af 6mo ago
Oh yes. But never dressed up as X! :D More seriously, what you describe is partly the short story. The short film adaptation doesn't quite work for me, for the reasons I explained in other comments.
400.
by the_af 6mo ago
Why? Surely one can criticize a movie, book, videogame, etc, without being required to create a better one in turn. I didn't hate it, and I always appreciate the charm of low budget productions. I'm just saying this particular ad
401.
by the_af 6mo ago
In the story, the very idea of permanently meat-based beings appals them, and in fact one of them doesn't entirely believe it. So why would they look like meat to "blend in", a priori, if one of them doesn't even fathom
402.
by the_af 6mo ago
I guess. It's still hard to mesh with the idea they don't believe these humans flap their meat at each other, or that they do not communicate exclusively via radio signals. It doesn't match my idea that these are two energy
403.
by the_af 6mo ago
> As I’ve gotten older, it’s become increasingly hard for me to understand how anyone can read such comical reductionism as enlightenment. First, it's a humorous piece. Second, it's as much a critique of the aliens as of the
404.
by the_af 6mo ago
I upvoted because I didn't know the short film existed and it's interesting. I think the short film completely misses the mark if both entities are there in human form, in a diner. (Of course, budget constraints, and the adaptatio
405.
by the_af 6mo ago
Plus for the story to make sense, they have to be seeing Earth from scans/sensors, and one of them must in fact not be familiar with Earth at all, having disbelief in what the other is saying. But if they are both there, in a diner, th
406.
by the_af 6mo ago
> Which films have had items censored out of them for release? I said "I see this being used" as an idiom for "this is likely to be used soon" ("I see this happening in the near future"), not that I'v
407.
by the_af 6mo ago
Why China? I see this being used in many countries, especially in the West. We've crashed head straight into a dystopian future. But worry not! The crash can be edited out of reality.
408.
by the_af 6mo ago
No. This is turn based, it doesn't play like any RTS game.
409.
by the_af 6mo ago
> Sure they were small games and had lots of game play for some defintion of game play. I enjoyed them immensely. But it's hard to go back to just a few colors, low-res graphics, often no way to save, etc... for me at least, the mo
410.
by the_af 6mo ago
Last Ninja has my favorite music from the C64 era. Have you listened to the live versions by the Fastloaders? They had Ben Daglish before he passed away.
411.
by the_af 7mo ago
> We're privileged because we generally don't do really dumb and awful things Except for right now, right? > "I'd kill you but you just haven't made me mad enough yet". Sounds like an unhinged viewpoin
412.
by the_af 7mo ago
First, thanks for sharing your dad's experience! Very interesting. I did say I thought it required constant alertness... over long periods of boredom, a bad combination. It's hours of nothing punctuated by frantic action. Worse to
413.
by the_af 7mo ago
Oh, believe me, I know about the need for siestas. But surely there's a middle ground between "heavy lunch" and "skipping lunch entirely" for a multi hour combat sortie? Many people cannot focus (especially over lon
414.
by the_af 7mo ago
The context is piloting a fighter aircraft in a multi-hour combat mission though. I think missing meal might matter for mission critical, uh, missions. I'm not talking doing menial work while skipping lunch.
415.
by the_af 7mo ago
> Vietnam - actually has great relations with the US and we won the peace. They won the peace (and the war). You didn't win shit. You lost, badly. The wound in the American psyche by this defeat will never heal, to the point w
416.
by the_af 7mo ago
I wonder if hunger can affect your focus and reflexes though.
417.
by the_af 7mo ago
Forget about pee, I always wondered about fighter pilots in one of those long, multi-hour flights, what happens if they really need to go number 2? I suppose they self-select as people without this kind of problems, but it can happen to a
418.
by the_af 7mo ago
We seem to make a disconnect with our own children. I certainly did. But it doesn't extend to even other people's kids!
419.
by the_af 7mo ago
It seems maladaptive. I faint (sometimes) at the sight of my own blood, and must look away when nurses draw it. I also get queasy when even talking about blood or reading about it. I can't think of any good reason this would be helpf
420.
by the_af 7mo ago
Space debris would have an additional meaning.

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