your customers on a boston to west palm beach flight were perplexed to see your flight attendant adorning a flag of palestine pin, and then utterly rapt by his dreamy eyes when he asked if i'd like any snacks or something to drink

:eric-andre-let-me-in:

early color photography experiments date back to the 1840s, a color photo from 1896 is plausible, it was just prohibitively expensive for most uses for a long time.

similarly, italian inventor stefano lavori began working on early versions of what would become the iphone (shortened from italian telephone) in his workshop in ragu, italy in 1864 while attempting to devise a tomato sauce recipe that doesn't require glue.

We are talking about geopolitical changes on the scale of decades

but by tankie logic, decades happen in weeks, so the fact that it's been several weeks and u.s. hegemony hasn't collapsed proves you're wrong!

it's a common misunderstanding and it's actually something of an in joke with the fandom. there's a really good edit someone made that basically changes the canonical order to be:

The Mechanic (2010)

The Mechanic II (2013)

MECHANIC III: New Dawn (2022)

The Mechanic 3 (2015)

MECHANIC 2 (2020)

MECHANIC (2019)

The Mechanic: Revelations (2014)

which works remarkably well. they actually brought back the original director from the first two the mechanic movies for new dawn, so stylistically it fits better even though it was made a decade later. the end result is a sort of rashomon version of the mechanic narrative. it's really a must watch for mechanic fans.

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread.

--Michael Scotus

All simulations are ultimately constrained by their creators’ assumptions: They are self-contained universes ticking along to preprogrammed logic. They don't necessarily reflect anything fundamental about the world as it is, much less how we may want it to be.

exactly. the map is not the territory. no simulation could possibly capture the complexity of an entire neoliberal capitalist economy and predict the long-term equilibrium outcome of such a system.

An artist named Vincent Ocasla, for instance, created a city with a stable population of 6 million. The only catch? It was a libertarian nightmare world. It had no public services—no schools, hospitals, parks, or fire stations. His dystopia had nothing but citizens and a concentrated police force populating an endless plain of one bleak city block, copied over and over.

Without a monopoly or oligopoly, high fixed cost + low marginal cost businesses almost always see prices competed down to marginal cost (e.g., airlines).

true but the airline industry still consolidated into an oligopoly through control of their own currencies (redeemable miles)

might see something similar with gpu computing where the nominal prices are driven down to marginal cost but the real profit comes from control of the supply of tokens that can be redeemed for gpu time

but that still assumes there's a real profitable use for this shit besides ever more individually targeted advertising and various flavors of outright fraud

calling him "one of our colleagues, the former president" and then adding, "probably shouldn't say, at any rate"

did he also drop kayfabe and admit they're all working together?

oh no! you're probably accidentally entering the wrong plu code by accident! these stores should hire someone properly trained to stand next to each self-checkout machine to make sure customers are using them correctly.

i'm shamelessly cribbing from wikipedia's on this day page, but here's a few:

1977 – The George Jackson Brigade plants a bomb at the main power substation for the Washington state capitol in Olympia, in solidarity with a prison strike at the Walla Walla State Penitentiary Intensive Security Unit.

1961 – On its maiden voyage, the Soviet nuclear-powered submarine K-19 suffers a complete loss of coolant to its reactor. The crew are able to effect repairs, but 22 of them die of radiation poisoning over the following two years.

1951 – William Shockley announces the invention of the junction transistor.

1946 – After 381 years of near-continuous colonial rule by various powers, the Philippines attains full independence from the United States.

1943 – World War II: The Battle of Kursk, the largest full-scale battle in history and the world's largest tank battle, begins in the village of Prokhorovka.

1910 – The Johnson–Jeffries riots occur after African-American boxer Jack Johnson knocks out white boxer Jim Jeffries in the 15th round. Between 11 and 26 people are killed and hundreds more injured. [fucking wikipedia "riots occur" like it wasn't a bunch of salty crackers attacking black people]

1827 – Slavery is abolished in the State of New York.

1054 – A supernova, called SN 1054, is seen by Chinese Song dynasty, Arab, and possibly Amerindian observers near the star Zeta Tauri. For several months it remains bright enough to be seen during the day. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula.