Agreed... that's where GRRM really shines... we *love* teams and cultures and archetypes. We love the *idea* of Honor-bound Northmen wielding large weapons plus knightly duchies and exotic spear wielding southerners who might (or might not) be subtle practitioners of poison.
And of course their buildings, their climate, their environs and their culture all inform how they fight, rule and scheme... That's world-building 101. Even Terry Brooks could do that (well, as long as he had someone to copy he could).
That's what makes his books delicious... but its also why he couldn't finish (I surmise). Once you've run out of places to describe and machinations to weave you have to land the story... and that requires a meta-narrative about why tropes were subverted and what is verted in its place. GRRM couldn't vert.
If I futilely attempt to avoid being 'that guy' by citing Kristen's early post about D&D just driving from event to event... that's the problem with the Army of the Dead. Jackson wanted the CGI more than he wanted the tale.
The Oathbreakers weren't that numerous nor all-powerful (among their weapons were fear...) Aragorn used them to lift the siege of Pelargir to bring reinforcements, human reinforcements. It also subverts the Theseus theme where Aragorn sails to Gondor with the Black Corsair ships of Umbar - which is the event that drives Denethor to his final despair. Denethor is the archetype of despair... he knows all, but abandons hope... so when he sees the Black Sails it is confirmation of the Destruction he foresees (with the Palantir) so he abandons hope and the moment hope arrives. Turning Denethor into a Daddy issue is such a Boomer thing. And these are the sorts of subtle errors that ... "well, it was necessary for the plot" ... just plain misses. Not to mention the ever-present problem of scale... everything in the Jackson movies is just too numerous... too big... too, well, despair inducing.
Riffing on InMD and Michael's comments about LOTR and Dune... my change-up would be that both of those books are fundamentally books exploring metaphysics and the plot is driven by that. GRRM's failure (and almost all modern fiction) is precisely this point... they don't have the metaphysics aligned so their plots fall apart.
Which is to say, if you just default to what's familiar like England, Kings, Lords and Ladies, then it doesn't make sense to have an Ice King and R'hllor... to have a Church where everyone is a skeptic... yet the day-to-day world is suffused with miracles that would make the Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Dennett drop to their knees and worship on the spot.
So while I've read all of GRRM's GoT books, he's at best 2nd tier because he thought making fun / subverting the Metaphysics would free him from it, but in the end it defeated him. Incidentally, this is more or less true of Brian Herbert and his pet writer... they get the plot but not the point.
I remember *not* liking Rocky & Bullwinkle when it was 'age appropriate' and wondering whether the age at which it might be appropriate was wrong.
For this weekend I'm trying to get our young contractor to multi-thread instead of single thread... the project is nearly complete, but he's being overly cautious about certain things being 100% complete before working on some other thing... which leads to total inaction without commensurate gain.
What's this new Scrum technique all'y'all are talking about?
We're so modern we had a second, warm water well dug last year ;-)
Our one major vulnerability on the homestead is water... if the power goes out for an extended period (like 3-weeks) we're sunk and all the animals will be gone one way or another. I keep looking for Solar and/or hand pumps to augment the well, but I'm in that bad place where I can see the engineering specs, but can't build the engineering specs... and can't find someone who will.
At night when no one is looking, I get paranoid about all or our assumptions regarding electricity and it's omnipresence.
The area I work in tech is adjacent to "sentiment analysis" ... I hear it's come a long way in the past decade, but from what I hear, it still seems that sarcasm's a bitch. Should be using SarCaptcha.
I'm much too young for this to resonate on a household basis... but man, winter, water, farm, and animals give me some feels. The self draining pump was a great invention.
If I recall, there are officially two votes (in the modern usage)? Convict and Disqualification?
On the one hand, it would seem Disqualify requires Conviction (which results in removal).
Question, can the Conviction vote be reframed as a pro-forma to vote on disqualification? Or am I incorrect in assuming Conviction must precede Disqualification vote?
Of course it would be odd if it didn't, as you could theoretically disqualify someone without convicting?... unless that person had already rendered the removal irrelevant by virtue of his actions or expiration of term. Which would be the point that the Presiding Judge and Majority leader would have to settle... no?
Yeah, not in the sense of lackey/subordinate... purely in the self-interest sense. We know there are folks with ambitions that Trump is blocking... the question is aligning enough of those with promises of future advancement in the event that they can knock him out.
I take your point that there mightn't be enough of that or sufficient trust or maybe there's too many folks who want the deed but not the vote... but I guaranty that the calculations/discussions are happening.
I'm not enough of a Senate fanboi to know all the senators... but the magic number is 17 and from what I've seen there are about 7 probable, 6 leaning, and 7 possible R Senators.
Which to my sales brain means the next step is framing it so that the 13 leaning/possible senators can defend a non-Trump principle that they can campaign on in the next cycle. Which would mean in practice that they can defend both a better voting process, reduced fraud, *and* the remove of Trump for subverting the election.
For bonus points I'd look at 2024 hopefuls and offer them a "proxy" vote/truce ... that is, if they deliver a 'possible' in their faction, we'll give them a gentleman's agreement not to push their 'No' vote in the election... but that requires all sorts of machinations/trust that I'm not sure exists.
To paraphrase Sun Tzu... don't cut off their hope of escape.
The success of the impeachment depends upon the framing of it such that Trump is being impeached for attempting to subvert an election including but not limited to the GA call and the riot during the certification.
Stay away from defining 'crimes' and other lawyerly pursuits... else we're defining 'incite' vs. 'conspire' vs. 'sedition' vs. 'insurrection' (vs. 'obstruction') it's not necessary, and ultimately you'll lose just enough support to make it feasible to wiggle out of the big picture into using 'it wasn't actually sedition' to vote no.
A quick skim of the actual articles shows that this is the main thrust and I think they are solid... I might have suggested that they add a nod to the due legal process that the Trump campaign was afforded to bring to light any substantial fraud ... which confirms fair recourse and access to the courts which have reviewed and rejected their claims.
But in the end... the bi-partisan take is the subversion of elections broadly construed... Let Republican Senators vote on upholding the election process, and don't make it about legal definition splitting.
I'll take the votes if they can deliver, but won't lie that it's more than a little oogy for me to see the Neo-Cons thinking they will get back the party.
I guess the reporter was self-filming? Else the camera should at least pan to show he's ok and all the other commotion is cascading inanimate objects? Or the camera man has a real sense of comedic timing?
Well, so much for my plan to cut/paste/send to Ajit Pai with a note: problem solved in a comment, dude.
I guess I'd put it this way, we should stop ignoring that there aren't tech races to establish platforms/protocols with winners/losers. On the one hand, we want to encourage Tech Races, and we live with winners/losers. But we still have to make sure that when Winners win they monetize the value not the moat. So at some point having won the network-effect race, we allow the monetization at the transaction level, not at the network level... so phase 2 of a healthy capitalism allows other folks to build businesses on top of platforms that are regulated to provide platform status.
It's a bit like electricity vs. electricities... or a phone network vs. networks... that's what the original 230 was meant to address... the network backbone... but we've moved forward from mere electricity to mere communication protocols to mere network exchanges... and the network exchanges can be local/small/curated or broad/open/transactional. When you win, you win the transaction war... but at the expense of the curated content/data owner wars.
That's why I'm not a simple repeal-230 guy... there are rewards and incentives we want to keep, and incentives we want to discourage... with the idea being that you monetize the value not the monopoly.
Given the security around the event, I think the likelihood is low... that said, in my screenplay version the head of the Secret Service sits Trump down and very politely but firmly informs him that he has two choices: 1) Sit his ass next to the incoming president for the duration, or 2) wear this special device and hope that no one even faints in a dramatic fashion at the event.
After the inauguration, his detail will remove the device. Enjoy your day, Sir... let us know which you prefer.
Washington Post is reporting that McConnel has informed the Senate that absent 100 unanimous votes to reconvene, the earliest the Senate could receive the Articles of Impeachment is Jan 19 and the earliest it could begin the trial procedures would be Jan 20/21...
Interesting read on the Parliamentary processes and rules we were wondering about.
On the whole Platform vs. Publisher vs. Club question... I'd consider introducing a new test for platform status: an open standard. That is, if the content generated on your platform is fully open for other services to write to, consume and distribute and curate... then you are a platform. Breaks-up the thorny/sticky issue of network effect and competition.
You can keep club status up to a certain point... beyond a certain number of subscribers, we're obviously not a club so either a publisher or platform... so decide if the value of a monopoly of a limited set of users/content is more important than the value of a large platform business where the content/users are not monopolized.
There's a lot more with regards content ownership and privacy... but moving towards business friendly models that offer protections where protections are warranted, keep competition in the forefront, and allow a platform to monetize its platform status as it gives up its user/content network/monopoly.
Eh, I'm post-Liberal enough to think that Liberalism itself is trending towards an authoritarian future... so sure? But part of my (self-)interest in impeaching Trump is recognizing we'll need to possibly impeach future President X (could be D or R or Other). I want the impeachment gears well oiled and functioning...
On “Game of Thrones: Little People, Big World”
Agreed... that's where GRRM really shines... we *love* teams and cultures and archetypes. We love the *idea* of Honor-bound Northmen wielding large weapons plus knightly duchies and exotic spear wielding southerners who might (or might not) be subtle practitioners of poison.
And of course their buildings, their climate, their environs and their culture all inform how they fight, rule and scheme... That's world-building 101. Even Terry Brooks could do that (well, as long as he had someone to copy he could).
That's what makes his books delicious... but its also why he couldn't finish (I surmise). Once you've run out of places to describe and machinations to weave you have to land the story... and that requires a meta-narrative about why tropes were subverted and what is verted in its place. GRRM couldn't vert.
"
If I futilely attempt to avoid being 'that guy' by citing Kristen's early post about D&D just driving from event to event... that's the problem with the Army of the Dead. Jackson wanted the CGI more than he wanted the tale.
The Oathbreakers weren't that numerous nor all-powerful (among their weapons were fear...) Aragorn used them to lift the siege of Pelargir to bring reinforcements, human reinforcements. It also subverts the Theseus theme where Aragorn sails to Gondor with the Black Corsair ships of Umbar - which is the event that drives Denethor to his final despair. Denethor is the archetype of despair... he knows all, but abandons hope... so when he sees the Black Sails it is confirmation of the Destruction he foresees (with the Palantir) so he abandons hope and the moment hope arrives. Turning Denethor into a Daddy issue is such a Boomer thing. And these are the sorts of subtle errors that ... "well, it was necessary for the plot" ... just plain misses. Not to mention the ever-present problem of scale... everything in the Jackson movies is just too numerous... too big... too, well, despair inducing.
"
Riffing on InMD and Michael's comments about LOTR and Dune... my change-up would be that both of those books are fundamentally books exploring metaphysics and the plot is driven by that. GRRM's failure (and almost all modern fiction) is precisely this point... they don't have the metaphysics aligned so their plots fall apart.
Which is to say, if you just default to what's familiar like England, Kings, Lords and Ladies, then it doesn't make sense to have an Ice King and R'hllor... to have a Church where everyone is a skeptic... yet the day-to-day world is suffused with miracles that would make the Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Dennett drop to their knees and worship on the spot.
So while I've read all of GRRM's GoT books, he's at best 2nd tier because he thought making fun / subverting the Metaphysics would free him from it, but in the end it defeated him. Incidentally, this is more or less true of Brian Herbert and his pet writer... they get the plot but not the point.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Hey Rocky, Watch Me Pull A Rabbit Out Of My Hat”
I remember *not* liking Rocky & Bullwinkle when it was 'age appropriate' and wondering whether the age at which it might be appropriate was wrong.
For this weekend I'm trying to get our young contractor to multi-thread instead of single thread... the project is nearly complete, but he's being overly cautious about certain things being 100% complete before working on some other thing... which leads to total inaction without commensurate gain.
What's this new Scrum technique all'y'all are talking about?
On “Thawing The Pump”
We're so modern we had a second, warm water well dug last year ;-)
Our one major vulnerability on the homestead is water... if the power goes out for an extended period (like 3-weeks) we're sunk and all the animals will be gone one way or another. I keep looking for Solar and/or hand pumps to augment the well, but I'm in that bad place where I can see the engineering specs, but can't build the engineering specs... and can't find someone who will.
At night when no one is looking, I get paranoid about all or our assumptions regarding electricity and it's omnipresence.
On “Drinking Cheap Vodka Will Kill You: A Twitter Parable”
The area I work in tech is adjacent to "sentiment analysis" ... I hear it's come a long way in the past decade, but from what I hear, it still seems that sarcasm's a bitch. Should be using SarCaptcha.
On “Thawing The Pump”
I'm much too young for this to resonate on a household basis... but man, winter, water, farm, and animals give me some feels. The self draining pump was a great invention.
On “It’s Not Just About A Speech: Impeachment and President Trump”
If I recall, there are officially two votes (in the modern usage)? Convict and Disqualification?
On the one hand, it would seem Disqualify requires Conviction (which results in removal).
Question, can the Conviction vote be reframed as a pro-forma to vote on disqualification? Or am I incorrect in assuming Conviction must precede Disqualification vote?
Of course it would be odd if it didn't, as you could theoretically disqualify someone without convicting?... unless that person had already rendered the removal irrelevant by virtue of his actions or expiration of term. Which would be the point that the Presiding Judge and Majority leader would have to settle... no?
"
Ah yes.
"
It sounds like Austen or Trollope... but I can't quite place it.
Or it's a brilliant original facsimile.
Either way, well done.
"
This one made me chuckle.
"
Yeah, not in the sense of lackey/subordinate... purely in the self-interest sense. We know there are folks with ambitions that Trump is blocking... the question is aligning enough of those with promises of future advancement in the event that they can knock him out.
I take your point that there mightn't be enough of that or sufficient trust or maybe there's too many folks who want the deed but not the vote... but I guaranty that the calculations/discussions are happening.
"
I'm not enough of a Senate fanboi to know all the senators... but the magic number is 17 and from what I've seen there are about 7 probable, 6 leaning, and 7 possible R Senators.
Which to my sales brain means the next step is framing it so that the 13 leaning/possible senators can defend a non-Trump principle that they can campaign on in the next cycle. Which would mean in practice that they can defend both a better voting process, reduced fraud, *and* the remove of Trump for subverting the election.
For bonus points I'd look at 2024 hopefuls and offer them a "proxy" vote/truce ... that is, if they deliver a 'possible' in their faction, we'll give them a gentleman's agreement not to push their 'No' vote in the election... but that requires all sorts of machinations/trust that I'm not sure exists.
To paraphrase Sun Tzu... don't cut off their hope of escape.
"
Right... you impeach on the principle. Period.
"
The success of the impeachment depends upon the framing of it such that Trump is being impeached for attempting to subvert an election including but not limited to the GA call and the riot during the certification.
Stay away from defining 'crimes' and other lawyerly pursuits... else we're defining 'incite' vs. 'conspire' vs. 'sedition' vs. 'insurrection' (vs. 'obstruction') it's not necessary, and ultimately you'll lose just enough support to make it feasible to wiggle out of the big picture into using 'it wasn't actually sedition' to vote no.
A quick skim of the actual articles shows that this is the main thrust and I think they are solid... I might have suggested that they add a nod to the due legal process that the Trump campaign was afforded to bring to light any substantial fraud ... which confirms fair recourse and access to the courts which have reviewed and rejected their claims.
But in the end... the bi-partisan take is the subversion of elections broadly construed... Let Republican Senators vote on upholding the election process, and don't make it about legal definition splitting.
On “Impeachment, President Trump, and Evidence That Demands a Verdict”
"to go back to bombing the ME and striking sweetheart trade deals with sweat-shop countries"
I said Neo-Cons, not Biden.
Ba da boom...here all week, folks.
"
I'll take the votes if they can deliver, but won't lie that it's more than a little oogy for me to see the Neo-Cons thinking they will get back the party.
On “Humor: The Sound of Falling”
3. Wedding cake.
4. Bear trap.
I guess the reporter was self-filming? Else the camera should at least pan to show he's ok and all the other commotion is cascading inanimate objects? Or the camera man has a real sense of comedic timing?
On “From Twitter Safety: Donald Trump’s Twitter Account has been Permanently Suspended”
Well, so much for my plan to cut/paste/send to Ajit Pai with a note: problem solved in a comment, dude.
I guess I'd put it this way, we should stop ignoring that there aren't tech races to establish platforms/protocols with winners/losers. On the one hand, we want to encourage Tech Races, and we live with winners/losers. But we still have to make sure that when Winners win they monetize the value not the moat. So at some point having won the network-effect race, we allow the monetization at the transaction level, not at the network level... so phase 2 of a healthy capitalism allows other folks to build businesses on top of platforms that are regulated to provide platform status.
It's a bit like electricity vs. electricities... or a phone network vs. networks... that's what the original 230 was meant to address... the network backbone... but we've moved forward from mere electricity to mere communication protocols to mere network exchanges... and the network exchanges can be local/small/curated or broad/open/transactional. When you win, you win the transaction war... but at the expense of the curated content/data owner wars.
That's why I'm not a simple repeal-230 guy... there are rewards and incentives we want to keep, and incentives we want to discourage... with the idea being that you monetize the value not the monopoly.
On “The Destructive High Water Mark of MAGA”
Given the security around the event, I think the likelihood is low... that said, in my screenplay version the head of the Secret Service sits Trump down and very politely but firmly informs him that he has two choices: 1) Sit his ass next to the incoming president for the duration, or 2) wear this special device and hope that no one even faints in a dramatic fashion at the event.
After the inauguration, his detail will remove the device. Enjoy your day, Sir... let us know which you prefer.
"
Washington Post is reporting that McConnel has informed the Senate that absent 100 unanimous votes to reconvene, the earliest the Senate could receive the Articles of Impeachment is Jan 19 and the earliest it could begin the trial procedures would be Jan 20/21...
Interesting read on the Parliamentary processes and rules we were wondering about.
On “From Twitter Safety: Donald Trump’s Twitter Account has been Permanently Suspended”
He would resign at 11:59 am giving us a full minute of Anarchy before Biden officially takes over.
"
On the whole Platform vs. Publisher vs. Club question... I'd consider introducing a new test for platform status: an open standard. That is, if the content generated on your platform is fully open for other services to write to, consume and distribute and curate... then you are a platform. Breaks-up the thorny/sticky issue of network effect and competition.
You can keep club status up to a certain point... beyond a certain number of subscribers, we're obviously not a club so either a publisher or platform... so decide if the value of a monopoly of a limited set of users/content is more important than the value of a large platform business where the content/users are not monopolized.
There's a lot more with regards content ownership and privacy... but moving towards business friendly models that offer protections where protections are warranted, keep competition in the forefront, and allow a platform to monetize its platform status as it gives up its user/content network/monopoly.
"
Heh, suspending Trump's account two weeks before he's out of power is the Elaine Chao of suspensions.
On “The Destructive High Water Mark of MAGA”
Eh, I'm post-Liberal enough to think that Liberalism itself is trending towards an authoritarian future... so sure? But part of my (self-)interest in impeaching Trump is recognizing we'll need to possibly impeach future President X (could be D or R or Other). I want the impeachment gears well oiled and functioning...