laplace2

"Tourettes Guy" is still banned from Wikipedia and I guess always will be.

I'm glad to have this pointed out to me. It's so "obvious" now that live butterflies don't look that way, I'll never not notice this now. It's similar to all the tricks video media uses for aesthetics and common familiarity: gun cocking noises, computer hacking images, punch sound effects, and the like. It also remind me of location specific tricks, such as how the pyramids of Giza, Egypt are shown in pictures, or how wildlife photographers sometimes do staged photoshoots.

I think it's a very good thing to be aware of this. So much of our information is received through indirect means, how many things do we watch on video without understanding how the image and sound has been enhanced? I've been surprised before to see something in person and realize the media representation is not accurate.

I've found learning and creating to be more fulfilling activities than videogames. That's not to advocate against gaming, or to generalize all games, but I've thought about how much time I spent playing games in the past and if I was happy with what I gained from it: I largely was not. I felt as if I was lacking in skills that I wished I had, and believe I could have learned in that time. I'm happier with myself after cutting down greatly on gaming, and I wonder if other people share the same joy of learning that I feel or if it's an unpopular perspective.

Add.: What I believe causes a game to feel unfulfilling is if after the game is finished the player, and the world, is (nearly) unchanged. If there's nothing to show for it. No new philosophy, no useful talent, no object created, nothing to share with others. Most games are equivalent in their impact to a bad reality TV show, a distraction from progress, a time sink, a void.

In addition to the Metro, another structure that I recognize as wonderful brutalism is the Hirshhorn museum. More than just visually unique, the space works well for exhibits as you work your way around the donut (one way or the other) with large interior windows (but also windowless exterior space). It's very different from anything else on the Mall, and also from much of the other typically rectangular brutalist (waffle) buildings in DC (exceptions for Watergate and the lovely Canadian embassy). From within the surrounding garden it feels at home, a smooth, geometric, vaguely alien singleton resting behind the hedges as any other sculpture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirshhorn_Museum_and_Sculpture...

As for brutalism coming back, I haven't seen much new construction. I suspect when it does make its resurgence it will be with some recognition of how it was received in the past and how those structures are regarded today.

I recall people complaining about Dorco raising prices after Dollar Shave Club came about. The conspiracy theory was that DSC reached an agreement to keep DSC competitive. This is unsubstantiated, but you can use the Internet Archive to look at prices on dorcousa.com and see that prices have gone up. For the Pace 4 Cartridge Refills FRA1040

2012: $3.50

2013: $4.50

2014: $5.50

2016: $6.50

https://web.archive.org/web/20111103235102/http://www.dorcou...