Dearest Meatcicles:

I tried wafting into the United lounge at the airport, and let me tell you, I certainly wasn't feeling the unity. First they asked me to not touch their furniture, then to stop magnetizing their paperclips, like as if I have control over that (I do, and I was bored), then they told me to just plain leave because I wasnt even part of their Ivory Tower membership club, or even a customer for that matter. In retrospect, I really had no reason to be there.

Going through the "millimeter wave" body scanner was... Stimulating? Like taking a shower with mechanical pencil lead except slightly erotic. 15/10, would do again. While I was there, I asked the fine, upstanding humanoids of TSA what good it does to send my bags and other people's shoes through their strobey tunnel of love thing, and they just looked at me like I was some kind of black canid apparition that supposedly haunts rural England. It was weird. You're all weird and I think it is important for you all to know that.
Cheddar OUT

# Thursday
@ Hyatt
&&  izixs  procyon  linusmynx
§ Cheddar
θ. No drinks

Is actually pretty depressing.
So instead they have is "ToldYouSoIng"
It's like the opposite of Yom Kippur.
Basically, you make a list of people who angered you, then you call them up and tell them what an asshat they are, and that you fuckin' told em so.
There's a lot of whelps born on ToldYouSoIng. No connection.

Also, a huge surge in shitposting.

Guide to Nachtan shitposting:
Tellisian ➡ Chog
Coronan ➡ CraphoundPlus
Gomi ➡ Trash-Rhino
Malych ➡ CraphoundClassic
Other carbon animal ➡ Beef Rod, Meat Monkey, Dork Chop, etc...

If they catch you not watching NBC, or not reading BUZZFEED.

"But I watch PBS!" You say.
Your nips will be first.

"But what if I watch Fox news?"
Then they'll put your nips to a dremel tool*.

"I watch gaming videos only"
Ah, then you already know of our plan to remove our nips, so that they cannot be used as receptacles of pain.

"Oh my god"
No, no god will save you now.

"What hotel are you staying at for MFF?"
The Hyatt

"Can I buy you drinks?"
Don't

"Are you fursuiting?"
ʎlʇuɐʇsuoƆ

"How can I find you?"
.
h̵̢͈̗̞̬͉̲̔̍͑̃̅͐̉̽͌̊͟t̨̧̠̫̳̹͆̿͋͛̆̉̿͡͝t̸̹͚̣͙͙͋̐͋͌́͟p̵̢͓̹͕̫̅̊̋̈̌͋̓͌͠ͅś̛̻̙̜̜͈̯͍̪̆͛̆͢:̶͔̪̭̗̤̩͈̏̒̍̑̚͜͝/̸̡̦̝̞̱̯͉̅̄̀͑̀̚/̴̳͎̩̭̺̝̺͓̲͒̀͆͆̀̀͢y̫̜̣͊̒͂͆͐̔͒͢͢o̧̗͉̘̼͍̮̘̺͐̊́̂͛̉͂u̡̦̟̭͓̤͈̰̼͚̓̇̾̍̚͞ţ̹̪̱̞̤̝͓̇̉̕͞͠ù͓̼̟͕̫̗̩͚̒̄͒̆̿̀͢͝͠.̨̘̞̭͔͖̝́̈͌̐̿̉̾͢͞͠b͈̯͙̦͐̈̆͌̕͠ͅȩ̤̻̟̰̦̀̆̓̋̆/̧̧͇͈̹̺͉͉͍͂̐̎͐̆̚c̡̨̺̠̹̥͇͔͗̑̉̐̕͟͞Ų̸̛̦̝̣̤̯̞̪̑̈́̾̓̌̑͡8̟̭͈̤̩͖̂́́̈̏̚Ḩ̮͚̥̖̩̬̮̤̽͆͊̍͂́̽̚͝ͅŗ̴̭̭̦̞͖͕̔̔̌̐̾̈́̀̚͠͠Õ̵̥̳̭͉̻̭͈̂̋̓̂̇̎̐͢7̸̧̧̺͗́̓̊͆͢͟X̧̩̞̳̥̑̒̇͗̽͑ư̧͖̠̖̭͔͚͎͖̼̓̇̊̀̅̾̂͘͞ỉ̷͔̲̼̤̃̂̌̊ͅĘ̷̹̦͓̠͒̃̐̅͗́̓̍͜
.
"..
.
"̪͕̫̖͓͙̙̖̬̔̄̀̃̓̐̂̆̀A̙͕̮̗͈̠̳͋͑̆͐͆͆͜͢r̴͓̪̺͖̮͈̞̞̗̓̎͒̿͐̊̅͜è̜̟̩̬̗̫̑͌͂̋̊͑͂͆͠n̴̤̻̲̘͔̈́̄̉̈̃̚͢͞'̷̨̥͉̤̝͓͍̝̝͒̎̕̕̕ͅt̸̢͔̫̯̝̹̯̰̿̋͑̇̚͢͝ ẙ͕̤̻̟̅̔͐̈́͊̐́͟͝o̙͈̟̺͓͊͑̂̃̓̐̑̔͘͠ŭ̵̡̱̖͓̻͍̬̓̽͆͑ ŏ̧͈̯̹͓̮̻͍͎͕̏̽̓̔͐̓̀͛͡v̧͇͉̣̌͐̈̅͆͛̂͟͡͠e̶̟̝̺̲̯̥͐̒͆͊̌̒̈́̏̕͘͜r̸̨̜̯̳̜̋͗͆̀̊̈̕͡u̦̳̭̙̹̰̺̞̪̓̀͛̊̓͛́̆͘͢ş̷̬̦̜͈̩̜̞̀͊̈́͑͋̈̓̕̕͜͝ȉ̴͖̻̲͓̗̭̓̓͜͡͞ǹ̢̩̻͕̬̮̬̱̦͗͂́̏͡͞g̸̛̫͍̦̮̝͙͇̊̏̌͛̃͗̔̊ ṫ̵̡̛̥̻̪̟̤̯͉̜̔̈́̿̊͋̎̏͘ḩ̨̛̛͕͚̒͐̉́̅̆̚͟ĩ̷̳̲̥̲̯̙͊́́̀̚s͚̮̹̖̦̖̯͉͌̀̄̐̇̕͟ ś̶̨̜̯͒̐͗̀͋̽̌͊̀͜ͅh̸͕͇̜̱͍̪̣̓͆͋̀͗͘͞͡i̵̞̗̠̣̫̞̘̟͌̓̈́͆̕͞t̡̨͓͎̥̐̍͊͆̊̚͡͡͞?̬̟̰̣̙͕̹̪̻͌͒͛̓͌́̈͊͢͞͠"̟̣̱̠͚͕͔̃̒̈́̈́͠
"No, you are.

"I want to go home now"
Nope.

🐺🍆
🚀🌎
🈶💯
👿👿
🌁🌈
🐴🍆
💅💂
😈🐺

啥滴蜡油
啥滴蜡油
我的自由
啥滴蜡油
啥滴蜡油
好啊!
啥滴蜡油
啥滴蜡油
梦想或现实
啥滴蜡油
啥滴蜡油
好啊!

But I don't remember the last time I actually pooped at home.

More on this later.

Tomorrow there is apparently a protest literally called "Scream Helplessly at the Sky".

TLDR: It's dumb.

I just never bothered to check until now.

Krark Christ, is our collective taste in music this bland? Its like somebody blew up 2014's Lorde fixation and now there's sprinkles and cake fondant everywhere. I'm sorry, I've clearly lost the ability to make a funny or coherent analogy today. I just spent 12 14 (I cant even math now) hours at work. Hello, this is dog.

Inferred discovery:
Radicals that generate and disseminate content which sabotages their own claimed causes do not respond to earnest, well-intentioned advice warning about attacks. They do not respond to direct messages either. I might add that (perhaps surprisingly) these individuals do not know me to be a "problem". The theory is: they dont actually /care/.
This was a test. Since it doesnt look like FB is going anywhere anytime soon (They just posted record profits last quarter. Apparently people cant get enough of this shit, and advertisers want to be all over it.) It's better to try to figure out how it ticks, than to remain scared of it.
I still think it's a toilet.

And if anything, the details of the Russian ads (assuming the released examples are even real), speak to the depth to which Facebook has been becoming a toilet for some time now. The Russian Trolls just simply clogged it. Just like the on the International Space Station (there was a point where the Russian provisions had meals with too much fiber in them and it caused issues with the delicate hardware of theirs, and other's national space toilets. Google it, it's hilarious.)
Anyway:
Facebook is an awful surrogate for social interaction. It's too much of an in-your-face form of Old Media, and becomes more and more like it every day as it replaces Old Media more and more. Warren Ellis wrote something about this back in 2007 in /Shivering Sands/, but back then we (nerds) thought it was cool, that this inevitability would always stay ahead of, and outside the reach of Those Who Make Things Suck, in the vaguest sense, whomever that may be at the time. Now, Zuckerberg is a reckless powerbroker and the Chinese are making fun of him, and Warren Ellis is a crotchety old fart, prematurely-aged from a diet of RedBull and food paranoia, now shambling around his manor, waving his cane and mumbling at passersby, claiming that one day, Zuckerberg will focus the world's telecom infrastructure to fire a beam of blistering, sanctimonious microwaves directly into his heart. "Thereby exploding it like a frog with a straw up its bum."
(Metaphorically)

That day was somewhere in 2014. It already happened. He might very likely be a zombie.

I.... watched a few...

I thought it would be that kind of nostalgia+surreal feeling that you get with something you remember a little bit of, except with lots of interpolation, and because most of it is new, you don't get any of the "ugh, this is not as great as I remember" parts. Literally, I thought it would feel like Mallsoft music.

It... kinda did... for a minute...

I mean, the robot T-rex is obviously very attractive, but the whole thing is... not very good.
I was warned. I was definitely warned about this. And I expected it to be worse, actually.

It's almost so bad it's good. Almost.

Not sure if it is though.



But hey, there's a robot T-Rex!

My toilet literally has a Facebook logo on it now. It was for a video.












No, not THAT kind of video.

Because a part of suiting is contributing to the ambiance with music/sound. My last suit was easy to pack a DIY amp and speakers into, the new one... Not so much. I'll probably resort to using a bluetooth speaker instead.

MFF 2013's playlist was Daft Punk "Get Lucky" on repeat through some crappy 3 watt speakers + crappy sub mounted around the H4K0 fursuit. Later updated to a 40 watt single-board amp with 4 speakers and no sub was necessary. But that set up never actually got to see usage because long story.

Candidates for MFF 2017's fursuit playlist:

1. Vaporwave, obviously, but played back at 50% speed, so it becomes 2vapor4wave or something.

2. Straight-up 80's commercials played through a reverb controlled by accelerometer. I mean, thats basically covering the same territory as #1

3. Denpa, played at 4x speed.
As in-character as it might be to mildly torture everyone nearby, I'm pretty sure this is illegal

4. Engine noises. Even though it doesnt make sense.

5. Recording of an Australian man saying the word "hoistways" on repeat.

6. Fucking tons of disco

7. 6 hours of frequency shift keying noise.

8. Catchy 80's tokusongs. (Optional - played at 50% speed)

9. A playlist consisting of a few of these things.

There's a lot that Liveman has going for it. Aesthetically, it is about as Japanese 80's as it gets. The cast seems older than other sentai series I've seen, although that might just be from a misreading of the wardrobe (woooo 80's Japan!). But at risk of reading too much into it, this series seems to have put the Sentai team through the rigors of seeing some psychologically-scarring shit much much faster than usual, so I have to suspect that there is an element to them trying to reclaim what's lost. Given that the series opens up with a murder, betrayal, and a space ship full of their friends and classmates getting shot down and crashing into the city, which itself isn't that unusual for a Tokusatsu cataclysm, but what's unique is how they portray it. While nudging little bits of characters' personal lives and expressions to one another is a staple of Japanese drama, one wouldn't expect to see it as often and as emphatically as one does in Liveman. I'm often amazed that they were able to slipstream so much tragedy into a weekend-morning superhero TV-show targetted mostly to kids (I think...)

To be honest, it's not "adult" since that term usually seems to confer sexual themes and sexual-based romantic themes, at least in the American context where literally everything targetted at any demographic, teen bracket and above, has a minimum quantity of often extremely artificial "sexual tension" inserted at regular intervals. And that's usually it.
There's actually a lot of decently-regarded drama I've sat through which doesn't pull off tragedy with the minimalist elegance that Liveman sometimes does.

Remember when you were a kid and you had to read one of those classic "boy and his dog" books in elementary school? Like Shiloh or 'Ol Yeller? This show is like that. In fact, they literally do an 'Ol Yeller with a kid and his intelligent dinosaur pet. Although they barely stop short of the kid actually shooting the dinosaur, only to have the dinosaur die from exhaustion after the villains use it's mother's calls to stir it up into a blind (and enlarged) rage. So instead of dying from a mercy kill, both the Sentai team and the kid get to watch the poor dinosaur get tormented to death by the villains. The Sentai of course do what they can to stop it, but in the end, some buildings still got smashed, the dinosaur is dead, the kid is emotionally-scarred for life, the Sentai team has to bury another body and even though the Scheme-of-the-Week may have been thwarted, the villains basically come out ahead.

The underlying structure is basically that. One of the villains cooks up a classic, ridiculous scheme to impress the Big Bad, and the Big Bad gives the green light. The scheme is implemented unseen, which is actually where the show shines, because in that interim, it almost seems to be implied that what are originally supposed to be apocalyptic schemes, usually drift into being more like extravagant mind-fucks to pull against the members of the Sentai team with any collateral damage just being a "bonus" for them.

It'd be like if part way through Power Rangers, Rita specifically sent the Green Ranger down for the sole purpose of taking a dump in Billy's bed instead of fighting all the Rangers or whatever (it's been a very long time since I've seen that show). Then part way through, Rita abruptly changes his orders and has him fill Trini's zord with mayonnaise and maybe kill a few people at the school, while she personally lights everyone's grandparents on fire. Actually, it's not like that, nevermind. But the idea is, things oscillate from funny haha to wtf on a regular basis from episode to episode.

But I want to talk about Mazenda in Liveman. Actually, all of the three main villains. Ashura (the 4th) has so far been more for plot-purposes (raising the ante), but the original three villains are starting to seem more and more atypical over time. I wouldn't go so far as to call them "realistic" since they are, costume villains in a Sentai series, after all, but as costume villains go, they... behave like sociopaths playing a system and maintaining their personal brands. On the surface, sure, they play up the whole "look how abominable we are! Grrr! Humanity is dumb!" thing, but in no way have they actually escaped the realm of human behavior. They are the classic nihilist wunderkind archetype, or at least they think they are, but in actuality, they're just fanatics that don't want to admit that the rationale behind their actions stems from something as irrational as fanaticism as opposed to something more philosophically rigorous. This is one of those weird archetypes that's difficult to pull off well in sci-fi, since most people think it's unrealistic despite history being jam-fucking-packed full of people who were or are like that. After all, there's a reason it's so common. On the other hand, I suspect the 4th villain is a different case, as has already been hinted at, since he gained a great deal more from the Big Bad. His allegiance is much less based upon self-delusion and ideology, and thus: he's the one to watch out for.

Still, they occasionally show unexpected depth. Mazenda, in particular, is desperate to prove that she had rid herself of humanity but is clearly disturbed by the destruction of something pure or idealized. Go seems like somebody who just has a hard time with expectations placed upon him and underwent the most extensive physical change of the three. And Kemp just likes attention. Strip them of their villain status, they're actually pretty normal. I've had a hard time trying to figure out if the point they're trying to make is that these are just three people that fell in with the wrong crowd and drank too much of the Kool-Aid (in the figurative sense) or if this says something about youth forged in high-pressure environments (like the Japanese education system) being at risk of their otherwise normal issues exploding into something society can't deal with. I would normally say that this would be reading far too much into it... if it weren't for the part where they have peppered the entire series full of things that point to both. Including narration directly acknowledging it.

So, yeah: Liveman.

I still have another 2/3rds of the series to go, but I'm so far rather surprised by how unexpectedly serious it is. Then again, it was also 1988. And in Japan, they tend to define eras relative to the Emperor at the time, in terms of history, literature and by extension: attitudes. And mid-to-late 80's Showa Japan produced some real gems of recherché postmodern catharsistic weirdness like Takeshi's Challenge, Tampopo and the meta-saccharin sound of City Funk (an entire genre recently reborn as the source material for Vaporwave in the US). I'm sure there are better examples and probably some counter-examples, but it seems fitting that this series came from that era.

I made a shoulder thingy that's... Thematic?

No pictures yet, because I'm still trying to decide if it's cool or ridiculous. I've been watching a lot (a lot) of old Super Sentai lately (Liveman!) and I think a little bit of the floppy, ultrathematic monster design sensibility leaked into the overly-isolated, vacuum-enveloped, hermetically-fucking-sealed container that is my design sensibility and as a result, I literally made a spikey shoulder pad that is pulsar-themed. The problem is, most people are probably going to think it's a propeller. And I dont blame them. The pulsar motif looks like a propeller. Because the first thing that comes to someone's mind when they see a two-blade, propeller-shaped object is "huh, that looks like a propeller" and not "Oh, those things sticking out represent the particle jets emmitting from the magnetic poles of a spinning neutron star, and the eye in the middle represents the equatorial halo, because I read wikipedia too much".
Part of the fun of suiting activity is collecting interpretations.

If you listen to content creators, successful ones, there is a strange gap occurring in what social media algorithms push, versus what is known to work. The result is a marked decrease in density of what was previously successful content, because suddenly there is doubt as to what content actually is in a given platform. Since quality content always makes a platform stand out, a sharp drop in "commitment" shown by high-profile creators to consistency is an indicator that the platform has become unnavigible and its future is too much of a gamble. When multiple platforms interact, it creates opportunities for one platform to displace aspects of the other. Note that Facebook Live video was a financial disappointment, because it had extremely narrow content, and almost no "successful" original content of its own. (They also amplified "controversies" that were targetted at disparaging competitor content which many bought into and was quite successful. In that they cultivated a political dialectic and attitude and leveraged it against YouTube, a competitor with superior quality content, and made a small dent in the reputations of top content creators.

So why is Facebook so sure their decaying reputation is "nothing"?

Because their business plan (of rapidly diversifying as fast as possible) allows for their core product to fail slowly without actually hitting their bottom line.

Facebook doesnt care if their algorithms make their platform into a toilet from here on out, because they've already extracted the peak value from the social media boom. So it really doesnt matter to them at this point if they become distrusted as a news source, because Facebook news isnt the future, it's the present.

Either that or they are so compartmentalized that executives within the company dont actually know whats going on outside of their immediate vicinity. And they do have incentive to maintain the impression that their ad platform is the "the most cutting edge".

I have a little bit of experience using their analytics inadvertantly over a year ago when I ran an parody political campaign for messianic Zoids villain, Krark. Who btw is not Skynet.

In the process, it appeared that Facebook generates randomized "impressions" right at the start of an ad run designed to encourage certain usage of their features. But if you look closely, you find that while the accounts involved are indeed real, the reported "action" upon which the reported impression is based is untraceble (fabricated). If this scales up on larger advertisers, thats a huge amount of "decoy data" they're generating before presumably delivering actual hard click-through data that the advertiser could verify later on.

Basically, instead of saying "we dont have enough data to tell you anything meaningful yet", they give you realistic-looking "noise" until a threshold is reached. Perhaps that noise has some kind of stats/marketting use that I dont know about, but it seems weird. At first, it seemed legitimate, but the reporting of engagement as one thing, when it was a different thing, seems unusually fuzzy.

In other words: the algorithm itself is disingenuous. Ironically, it may very well have distorted the whole "Russian Ads" thing to something different than it really was, and the reason FB isnt forthcoming about that data is because it calls attention to something about their system that would turn away new advertisers (those not yet experienced in how to deal with its quirks and game the system by its rules). Existing advertisers would probably stay, but this would put a damper on growth and cause marketers to put more effort into another platform that's more transparent, like YouTube, or Twitter.

TLDR: I think Facebook has had problems for a long time, and nobody bothered to examine them until the recent situation.

If a "normal" universe can be characterized as one where matter/energy cannot be created/destroyed, and entropy acts upon information (arrangement of matter/energy), then a "magical" universe is the opposite: One in which information cannot be created or destroyed, and entropy acts upon matter/energy.

Such a universe would be full of ghosts and extremely old things in relatively good condition (information) and matter/energy with strange properties and a penchant for transforming into something else if left alone or not maintained and very "spongey" thermodynamic behavior allowing for creation/destruction of matter/energy (as long as information is conserved). DISCUSSIONNNNNN

Hello  izixs

I dont know. It was going to be Ohio, but I keep getting spectacularly bad results on job searches over there for my field in particular. Owing to that state having piles and piles of fully-accredited arch schools less than 200 miles from eachother.
I get results like:
"Applicant must have an award... No.. TWO awards, yes... And a doctorate... No, TWO doctorates and a Nobel Prize... And no less than a 4.3 GPA, no wait... TWO 4.3 GPAs, counting everything since preschool. Also we require a $30,000 deposit and btw this is for an unpaid, full-time internship."
Im only exaggerating slightly, but its still a case of nobody in their right mind would ever give this serious thought.

Why Ohio? Because it is 1/3rd the cost of basically anywhere in Colorado and /surprisingly/ less run-down. The problem with CO is all the places that dont look like ex-meth labs are $1800+ for 400 square feet, and they are on-par with average or even entry level housing. The places less than that are either overt scams ( where I am no), or literal crack-shacks or single rooms in a house full of hydroponic weed growing apparatusses and 8 or 10 other roommates in a 3 bedroom house.

It blows. It's far away from everything interesting, uneconomical and home to the proportionally largest, straightest, most milquetoast population of unmarried people in the country. It is a "dating state" for "beautiful people" and the few times Ive tried to participate in the furry scene, it's been cliquish and weird. Nothing like what Ive seen at every other out-of-state gathering or con.

So moving yay...

Haha, so: here are some items to digest:
The distinguishing characteristic between "Dank memes" and "Memes", is time and audience spread. "Dank memes" tend to consist of a limited set of items, virtually universally recognized, and seems specific to memes that hit univerality after 2013. Regular memes are linguistically-bound and tend to be only accessible within a single or few languages, but older ones are particularly simple and elegant and are /translatable/. Dank memes require no translation to be universalizable because they are not actual linguistic objects, just pointers. Which is to say: Dank Memes are increasingly "reference-like" rather than "object-like".

As a side note: "Dank Memes" also made the class-clown archetype obsolete, since it became possible for anyone to generate recognizable absurdity and lolz in an instant with almost no effort.

Which is why they are so fucking easy to program a script to generate.

The good news is: statistics show that this current paradigm of Dank Meming is fixed in scope because it is extremely repetitive. Repetition implies that it is moribund.

I've been taking pictures, but since that's literally the only thing my phone can do right now (new one coming Wednesday), there's none to see.
But:
massive progress on Cheddar head. As is turns out, furless Cheddar, with teeth and horns and the black pantyhose fabric, is...

actually very spooky.

Way more than I expected.

Which is okay, because he's supposed to be kinda, If anything, the eyes make him a little less so. But still, the horns came out kinda fucking metal, but sadly, as it turns out, they're very crumbly and setting the head upside down snapped them both.
Which is substantially less fucking metal. But anyway. The pictures will be more interesting once I get them off the phone.

Probably not, it just happened to soft-brick while updating Facebook, and I have begun to actually hate Facebook, so by way of cognitive bias, it is Facebook's fault.

But good news: I took another stab at making a Cheddar fursuit head, and this latest attempt is much lighter and better. Hopefully the fur looks right on it. I tried to make it as slim as possible. Also: I figured out how to make the eyelights removable for TSA passability.

There's not much time left before MFF, and I'm probably going to limit this suit to head, jacket, tail and hands. I may have to forgo the hooves for now since they are too complicated to fabricate. I can get away with PVC clay for teeth, claws and horns, but I'm pretty sure that material wouldn't handle being walked-on very well. Which blows because Cheddar doesn't wear shoes.

At least I'm making stuff again though, yay...

(Removed - That's a lot of deleted comments, maybe it's better not to talk about this here)

D:

And instantly: furriness reaffirmed.

Or, reaFURmed...


Ugh

Fur-puns are not even the dad-jokes of the fandom.

And yes, the blue-glowy hellhound critter at the beginning of episode 4 is rather attractive.

I think if Cheddar ran into him somewhere, they'd probably have a good fuck. Probably some weird pillow-talk though.

I almost forgot it was Aug 1, not Aug 2.
Festivities consist of a bunch of anime heads, closet furries, furries, and the more sophisticated of Pokémon Go players being totally in on a thing that's impossible to describe to everyone else. Everywhere except Colorado, because fandom is virtually nonexistent here in this isolated, banal, office building of a state.