The New Coffee Room

@LuFins-Dad said in What’s in a name?:

Back at our old address (or maybe even the one before) @Aqua-Letifer and I went off on the evils of “The Silver Diner”, a chain of supposed diners that had been taken over by some foodie chef and had gone off the rails. The argument that I made was that a real diner gives you a 50/50 chance that the cook’s cigarette ashes are in your eggs, and would never describe in detail on the menu it’s “delightful Garlic Aioli”…

Last weekend, I had the fortune/misfortune of going back… They have now removed the jukeboxes from the table, and the restaurant has a full blown cocktail bar. They don’t even pretend to be a diner at this point The menu items only has a handful of “diner” items, and is instead surrounded by Thai Cauliflower Quinoa Pasta and Braised Boneless Short Rib. On our visit, Karla had flatiron steak medallions (that rivaled anything from the top end chophouses), Luke had lump meat crab pasta, and I had Buffalo Chili Huevos Rancheros… Karla washed down her Flatiron with a mojito, Lucas had an Old Fashioned, and I had a local craft beer. Finley had the most Diner-like meal with silver dollar pancakes and hot chocolate…

So here’s my conundrum… The food was as good as can be… I will gladly eat more… But I am also terribly offended by them continuing this farce of being a diner. A diner is a very real and wonderful place, and this place isn’t that. So, do I stand by my morals, or go get another plate of those awesome Buffalo Chili Huevos Rancheros?

DO NOT SLANDER CHEF YPE.

I mean... sort of. Bukowski's a lot like Tom Waits in that a lot of it is him, and a lot of it is a detailed persona. He chose loserdom as a kind of hat to put on.

Interesting that a person who is familiar with survivorship bias has a harder time discerning between reality and archetype. Not that Bukowski's bullshit, but that he wrote from a perspective that was very much deliberate.

@Doctor-Phibes said in Ben Affleck: “AI can’t make film that is considered art.”:

@Aqua-Letifer said in Ben Affleck: “AI can’t make film that is considered art.”:

Have to takeyou actually tried landscape photography? Of course not.

No, but my dad did it as a hobby, and was pretty good at it. There is clearly less effort required to take a landscape photograph than to paint a watercolour, and to pretend otherwise is foolish. Is there less art? I honestly don't know.

It categorically takes longer to take a good landscape photo. It takes hiking for a few hours several days in a row hoping the conditions are right. Ask anyone who's been very good at it. It takes Simon Baxter years to make his. If it took you less time then you're a dabbler.

Your reaction, however, was entirely predictable and indeed predicted.

Bro I don't want to hear it. Pissing people off is your entertainment, I don't owe you shit.

@Doctor-Phibes said in Ben Affleck: “AI can’t make film that is considered art.”:

My grandad was a very good watercolour painter. He was very dismissive of photography, and it's very clear that a lot less effort goes into taking a high quality photograph than in painting a high quality landscape.

Have you actually tried landscape photography? Of course not.

Yes, hearing blowhards talk out of their ass about things they know nothing about I find severely insufferable.

@xenon said in Ben Affleck: “AI can’t make film that is considered art.”:

@Aqua-Letifer said in Ben Affleck: “AI can’t make film that is considered art.”:

@xenon said in Ben Affleck: “AI can’t make film that is considered art.”:

Once it gets to that point

It's not going to do that.

Email marketing campaigns in the 90s enjoyed an 80% open rate.

Today, depending on the industry, 20% can be considered astronomical. And nobody's getting 80 anymore. The reason's market saturation.

There are several hundreds of attempts at your attention on the daily, and the ones that win are those that are relevant and stand out.

Generative AI is a predictive aggregator and nothing more. By its very nature, the more you let it make decisions, the more it sucks at standing out. Sure, it can trick us into doing such now due to its novelty, but there's been a pushback in volume-as-strategy, starting about 10 years ago, and it's not going to get any better. AI's not going to do anybody any favors there.

The folks who will win with generative AI will find novel, compelling uses, in much the same way that photographers do right now with their cameras. And let's remember that the only people who agonize over camera specs are (1) the companies peddling the cameras and (2) tech-bro prosumers with more money than sense. It'll be the same with AI.

Another fun thing to ponder: if AI's so revolutionary and wonderful, why is its biggest bragging right the ability to hide the fact that it's being used? Think that's in any way sustainable?

I don’t necessarily disagree. AI has zero creativity. It synthesizes new things from things it’s seen.

My comment was more that it can swamp the landscape with near-zero cost content. The good stuff won’t go away and people will always value it… but it’ll still be awash in a zero cost flood of shit.

Absolutely.

@Klaus said in Dads posting their Ws:

There's a phantastic series of books by Frank Schwieger presenting various parts of Western history in a way that is compelling and funny and geared towards kids. It's the reason why my daughter comes across as being an expert in Greek mythology.

Not sure whether the series is available in English.

Thanks for mentioning; I'll try to find one.

Here's one: the kiddo and I have taken to getting food together on Thursdays, when mom has night class. Only thing is, the drive to just about anywhere is 45 minutes.

My car has no carplay and the radio's busted, so we've taken to stories. I don't remember where exactly we did this, but as a kid, my dad told me the stories behind all the constellations. (He was an astronomy teacher.) So, I'm telling the kiddo all about Greek mythology. She knows about Perseus, his meeting his half-siblings, Hermes and Athena and the gifts they gave him. How he killed Medusa, birthing Pegasus, and how he rescued and married Andromeda.

Now we're going through the labors of Hercules. She seems to be remembering, too, because she wants to hear about "Hercules and the other creatures."

It's forcing me to brush up, too, which has been fun. I told her that if she remembers the stories, they can be a fun way to dunk on pretentious dweebs for the rest of her life. She didn't quite get that but she likes the monsters.

@Doctor-Phibes said in The Vinyl Revival - So wrong on so many levels:

It's a bit like rolling your own cigarettes, except of course they do actually taste better. A big chunk of my youth was spent buying the things, and streaming music really doesn't compare at all.

Buyers who claim warmer tones, a more "pure" sound etc. are exactly right in the same way that a cold beer after spending an afternoon mowing half an acre just tastes better than a cold beer drunk after an afternoon of sweet fuckall on Instagram. Analyzing the chemical compounds of the beer to sneer at such claims absolutely does miss the point.

@Doctor-Phibes said in The Vinyl Revival - So wrong on so many levels:

It never ceases to amaze how many things were "so much better" when we were young, even though they were in reality actually somewhat lacking, and in some cases a load of crap.

Both you and this guy are missing the point. This isn't a left-brain function kind of a thing.

Even the folks who are getting into vinyl because of the tones aren't getting into vinyl because of the tones.

@Mik said in Holiday memes:

Christmas in Key West.

Zero chance that boat's not named "The Loan Ranger" or some other such bullshit.

@xenon said in Ben Affleck: “AI can’t make film that is considered art.”:

Once it gets to that point

It's not going to do that.

Email marketing campaigns in the 90s enjoyed an 80% open rate.

Today, depending on the industry, 20% can be considered astronomical. And nobody's getting 80 anymore. The reason's market saturation.

There are several hundreds of attempts at your attention on the daily, and the ones that win are those that are relevant and stand out.

Generative AI is a predictive aggregator and nothing more. By its very nature, the more you let it make decisions, the more it sucks at standing out. Sure, it can trick us into doing such now due to its novelty, but there's been a pushback in volume-as-strategy, starting about 10 years ago, and it's not going to get any better. AI's not going to do anybody any favors there.

The folks who will win with generative AI will find novel, compelling uses, in much the same way that photographers do right now with their cameras. And let's remember that the only people who agonize over camera specs are (1) the companies peddling the cameras and (2) tech-bro prosumers with more money than sense. It'll be the same with AI.

Another fun thing to ponder: if AI's so revolutionary and wonderful, why is its biggest bragging right the ability to hide the fact that it's being used? Think that's in any way sustainable?

@Horace said in Hey Aqua:

@89th said in Hey Aqua:

@jon-nyc said in Hey Aqua:

And I successfully evaded the cop. It’s one of my 3-0 success stories in losing cops.

I briefly thought about beginning a life of crime at that point.

Not to nit pick, but you would have been continuing a life of crime at that point. Similarly, you are currently taking a break from your life of crime.

Considering the total statutes, laws, ordinances and HOA regulations currently on the books, I think it would be fair to say that we are all in some way, knowingly or not, continuing a life of crime.

And Horace, contrary to what you may hear out there on the streets, there is no such thing as a victimless crime.

@Mik said in UnitedHealthcare CEO fatally shot:

Jesus.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/luigi-mangione-fundraiser-update-as-donations-near-milestone/ar-AA1vKHkC

Mobs are stupid and always are. I think the far more useful thing is to make note of why mobs pay attention to specific people, events or circumstances.

If this were the CEO of Lego, the public reaction would have been very different. In other words, you wouldn't have this kind of reaction without some seriously deep animosity against insurance companies—which I think would be very difficult to claim this one in particular doesn't deserve.

@Jolly said in Hand off.:

I've only read a couple of Lee Child's Reacher novels. A few years back he decided to quit writing them and hand the series off to his brother.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grant_(writer)

Has there ever been a successful series handed off by the author that maintained the quality of the original?

It's never going to be identical, so no, the qualities are always going to be slightly different. I think a more reasonable metric might be, how bad did they screw it up?

Dune's handoff was pretty good I'd say, as was Tolkien's, for that matter. I've been reading over several of the ancillary books over the past few months and I've really got to applaud his editing, documentation and understanding of what's best for the stories.

@Mik said in UnitedHealthcare CEO fatally shot:

We’ve never stopped talking about these issues. It just never got this kind of pop culture clickbait treatment.

That's all this is. "Raising awareness" is only as good as the people whose awareness is being raised.

@jon-nyc said in Hey Aqua:

Buying for meetings.

True story: I got pulled over in New Jersey by some real pieces of shit if you ask me. I forget what they said that caused me to laugh at them, but laugh at them I did.

They proceeded to empty my entire car, put me in the back of theirs in handcuffs and who the hell knows what would have happened past that. For whatever reason, they got me out, uncuffed me and just left me there with half my stuff still on the street in the dark. They sped off real damn fast.

That last is really the only part of the story that doesn't make any sense.

Props for the Kipling reference.

@LuFins-Dad said in UnitedHealthcare CEO fatally shot:

There really is two sides to every story. While I wholeheartedly agree that our current insurance system is busted, I hardy believe these caricatures of evil insurance executives living large off the pain and suffering of their clients. It is far more complex than the cartoonish image of the monopoly man with bags of cash…

Of course it's more complex than mobthink. Isn't that obvious? Everything always is.

@Mik said in UnitedHealthcare CEO fatally shot:

I get his position. It is informed by a situation much worse than most people ever deal with, but we’ve dealt with similar runarounds - a different and contradictory story every time you talk to them. It’s incredibly frustrating even when it’s relatively minor health issues. Couple extreme suffering with it and one can understand his anger. Still, not how he expressed it. This kid had a top education and could have chosen to fight within the law.

My thoughts as well.

@George-K You saw Glaucomflecken's, right?

@jon-nyc said in UnitedHealthcare CEO fatally shot:

That’s true. It’s the same crowd that posts about oppression from phones made by child slaves.

That argument doesn't really play out. Organized rebellions, radicals, terrorists and crackpots have a lot in common with everyone else in that they aren't universally consistent with living out their values.