Pat @Pat@qoto.org

@stux

अनुवादकेन सह प्रायः कस्यापि भाषायाः उपयोगं कर्तुं शक्नुवन्ति ।

-

Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

The Village (2004)

This is probably more of a horror than a science fiction film, those genres often get conflated -- definitely a mystery. It’s all about a village, as the title implies, but what is this village about? Who are these people? Where are they? And who are those they don’t speak of?

It’s a very well made film. The acting and writing is flawless, the script is original and compelling, filled with metaphors and symbolism, and ultimately a commentary on society and the human condition. The cast includes some of the greatest stars in Hollywood -- William Hurt, who we lost recently, along with Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, Sigourney Weaver, and Brendan Gleeson.

The film is scored by James Newton Howard with brilliant performances by violinist Hilary Hahn.

However, there are about 100 people in this cast and they are all white. Every one of them. One guy looks like he may be of mixed Asian heritage, maybe not. Actually, the director has a cameo in the film, but he is seen from behind and you can’t tell from the camera angle that he is Indian. This film was made in 2004, with a cast of some of the most progressive stars in Hollywood. How did that happen?

It was written, produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, so he’s ultimately responsible for the quality of the film, as well as the extreme racial bias in the cast. Some of his more recent films are more racially balanced, so maybe he woke up.

Even though this is a well-made film, I can’t recommend it because of the extreme racial bias in the cast.

#science #fiction #ScienceFiction #SciFi #FTW #sfftw #film #movie #village
#horror #mystery #society #humanity #progress #thosewedontspeakof #biglie

@johnabs

>"I think until we solve the corruption problem (maybe programmatically? but that opens up a completely different can of worms) it seems like we're stuck."

Yeah, ultimately the problem lies between our ears, with this brain that evolved millions of years ago, and is mal-adapted to this post-scarcity world.

@freemo @rbreich

@empiricism

https://qoto.org/@Pat/107001196063402171

@freemo

This is why cultural appropriation is so wrong. 😆

Here's the original, in case someone hasn't heard it (like me):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvBfHwUxHIk

@baldengineer

And for 'until' loops, use hell_freezes_over.

(I presume the result of dex is always plus?)

@freemo

>"...the tax system is rather fair ..."

Compared to slavery, yeah.

>"...we can agree to disagree here."

I disagree.

>...the real problem is more about how lax we are about anti-trust laws..."

Yes, that's another big issue and one that I think is due in large part to laws that encourage monopolies and hinder companies that attempt to challenge incumbent market leaders. (those laws are often written by those incumbent firms themselves)

@johnabs @rbreich

@admitsWrongIfProven

>"If you want to engage in communication with other people..."

I want more interaction, not less -- a healthy community. If those accounts are bots that are just copying shit from twitter, it means that they don't interact, so I want to sift those out.

Whenever you comment on one of their fake toots, they either don't respond at all or the bots spit out some generic response like, "Good point" or "Thanks for the comment" or they just fav your toot.

Note: If the bot was sentient and could actually carry on a convo, then I wouldn't care if it was human or artificial.

@admitsWrongIfProven

>"Do you have a source on that? I have heard the stellar opposite."

Who are you asking, what is "that". Specify.

@freemo @johnabs @rbreich

@cmclase

>"Without fit testing, I wouldn't recommend a N100 over an N95."

Many elastomerics have special valves for closing the the inlets during a seal check. If someone knows how to do that (which is very easy to learn), then those respirators can provide a much better seal and more efficiency than an N95 FFP.

>"Thanks for following and for your comments."

Thank you for the discussions...

@cmclase

>"I'm not sure why anyone who understands #covid19 transmission would wear a respirator with an exhaust valve?"

- When you properly wear an N100/P100 elastomeric respirator whenever you are in a potentially contaminated environment, your chances of becoming infected approach zero, which means you're not a source, so source control is unnecessary. (In effect, the source control occurs during inhalation.)

- If the valve is properly maintained, it will not allow leakage under negative pressure.

- Source control in the general population is only effective when nearly everyone practices it (and then only partially effective). When half of the people are running around without any mask at all, it becomes pointless.

- An exhaust valve greatly increases comfort, especially when wearing the respirator for long periods.

Should I mute everyone who uses the abbreviation "RT" in their toots?

"RT" stands for "retweet" and of course there is no such thing here on Mastodon. Here that concept is known as a "boost".

I'm guessing that most if not all toots that contain "RT" are just bots that are barfing out whatever they found on twitter.

@garyackerman

>"What do we do with books in which the author makes some compelling arguments in early chapters, then makes some pseudoscientific claims later? I'm talking claims that have been discredited for decades."

If it's science, then judge each claim based on the evidence, whether or not they seem compelling; whether or not they contradict established scientific dogma.

@freemo @johnabs

>"Finally, the reasons that the poor "cannot create wealth" is that often it is taken from them while the wealthy are given kickbacks in an almost perverse way... "

The most deleterious way in which money flows from the poor to the wealthy is through the unfair tax system with all of its exemptions and deductions. To determine a "fair" tax rate, i.e. one in which everyone pays the same rate on all economic activity, you need to divide tax revenue (about $4T / year) by all economic activity, i.e. every dollar that changes hands (estimated about $1600T / year). That works out to a tax rate of .25%. That's right, if we fairly taxed every dime of economic activity -- every time a dollar changes hands -- instead of carving out loopholes for the rich, everyone would pay a tax rate of .25%. But under the current corrupt system the poor and working class pay 30-50%, while the wealth often pay nothing.

>"There is an issue, and part of that is how we treat money, sure.. the point is wealth inequality simply isnt an issue and hurts no one itself."

Wealth inequality is an issue and it does hurt people when it is so great that some people can't afford the basics, like shelter, food, transportation, healthcare. And it's a huge issue when it is the result of government intervention on behalf of the wealthy -- distorting markets while leaving more people in desperation.

Turning over more control to the government as a response to this situation will only make it worse because government policies (which are ultimately determined by the wealthy) are what have gotten us into this mess in the first place.

I think some form of robust Basic Income, like a Universal Basic Income for those who need it, along with a fair tax system that politicians can't touch, is a sustainable way to alleviate the suffering.

@rbreich

@tealeg

I think if the data is human readable and mixed in with enough legitimate content, it would be difficult for a site to sort it out, even with ML algorithms.

Since there is no limit on the amount of video, the encoding/decoding scheme doesn't need to be storage efficient (but it would need to be temporally efficient to some practical degree).

@AmpBenzScientist @lupyuen

@tealeg

>"storage you can’t trust it’s not storage."

Just create a protocol that uploads to multiple videos sites -- like a RAID.
@lupyuen

@AmpBenzScientist @tealeg @lupyuen

So how are they going to stop it? Are they going delete every video that shows any text of graphics that represents "data".

@AmpBenzScientist @tealeg @lupyuen

It works on qoto's peertube instance, too. Except that one has a limit. 😂

https://video.qoto.org/videos/watch/60b62289-3f4d-4f31-bb5d-496ddcdcde11

(It's a video that is scrolling through this thread. Get it? This thread is "embedded" in the video.)

>"The most efficient respirator is an N100 or P100 elastomeric, not N95."

*Most efficient at a reasonable price. PAPR respirators are more efficient but cost thousands of $.