Uncategorized – Head Noises

Memorial Day: A Debt to Repay

Pay it forward.

When you go home, tell them of us and say,
For your tomorrow, we gave our today

Inscription on the Memorial to the dead of the British Second Division at Kohima

I have always been careful, as best as I am able, to repay any debts I have incurred in this life. Of course some debts are unrepayable. How, for example, do we repay the debt to our parents for their care of us as children, especially, as in my case, when they died relatively young, before they endured the ravages of age and required our assistance? Our salvation, bought by Christ on the Cross, is completely beyond our poor power to repay. On Memorial Day we honor those who we can never repay, those who have died in our wars. They had the sweetness of life taken from them, usually after a short twenty years or so on this…

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Debit or Credit?

>>> Each individual no matter how flawed adds something and is a credit, even if just by giving us someone to love and care for. And as such, every individual is indispensable and unique. You might not personally like someone, but it’s neither your duty nor your right to control their every decision and interfere in their every action. It is not your right nor your duty to dictate how your fellow man lives and dies. They can decide that each one by himself.

According To Hoyt

Phantom — in comments, recently — mention at the basis of all the leftist policies is the idea of overpopulation: the Malthusian hot mess that believes humans, like some kind of fungus will reproduce till the Earth can’t support them.

I’d never realized that. It is true sort of, though it’s perhaps based on an even crazier premise which in turn is at the very heart of not just socialism/communism but the idea that anyone gets to arrange all of human life from the top down, to spare individuals’ making wrong decisions. Which is, objectively, an idea so crazy that you can’t figure out how any human alive can think it.

And yet, if your theories tell you that humans are too stupid to stop reproducing when they’re starving, then any level of intervention is justified, because, OBVIOUSLY humans are brainless.

This tells me, btw, that good old Malthus understood…

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Wing Chun History… in Dayton?

Aliens in This World

Yup, the Ving Tsun Museum opened up at some point before 2014, in Dayton, Ohio. Over on Brandt Pike, if that means anything to you.

It’s a real freaking museum, all about the history of the martial art of Wing Chun.

I had not heard anything about this, probably because I have missed a lot of local news. But wow!

They sponsored a Wing Chun tournament last year.

The website is somewhat inactive, but there are some nice YouTube videos.

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Free Story

Shoplifting in the Marketplace of Ideas

Yeah, this whole “Three stories that made me quit reading Asimov’s” thing is turning into the “Sex in D&D” story always promised in What’s New with Phil and Dixie. There’s actually an unpublished draft about half finished for the first one on the system here. And there are SO many things I’d rather do….

Of course, the end result is that the blog gives all the appearances of being dead. There hasn’t been much to talk about that hasn’t been discussed in better detail elsewhere. (Like China basically stealing WorldCon and the Hugos right out from under the noses of the CHORFs.) And honestly, I’ve been dedicating more time lately to my sadly ignored Anime Blog. I can tell from the stats though that there is a loyal reader or something in Switzerland who is regularly checking to see if there’s anything new here, so this entry should come…

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Underrated Things

Cat Rotator's Quarterly

Dorothy Grant and I were text-chatting about the weather (chilly with steady rain from 0545-0700 the next day), and the pleasure of being inside and dry, or at least of not being out in very cold rain, drenched to the skin and staying wet for several more hours. Dry socks are a critical part of the equation. Cold, wet feet make everything else miserable.

Hot water on demand, especially clean hot water on demand is also underappreciated by people who have never been without access to that blessing.

Food that is available when you want or need it, and that you know is safe.

Access to books, all kinds of books, new books and old books and cool random books, fiction and non-fiction.

A firearm or sword hilt that fits your hand and that doesn’t bite. Or really, any tool that fits you and the job both.

Cars that start…

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So About That King Harv Guy… – A Guest Post by Ashen Baron

A friend (that I’ve seen! Face to face!) has a guest-post about King Harv’s coffee.

According To Hoyt

So About That King Harv Guy… – A Guest Post by Ashen Baron

Life can be odd sometimes. If you’d told me I’d drink half a pot of coffee every morning seven years ago, the last time I tried it on account of moving from overnight to early morning shift, I’d have told you that you were crazy. Same for a few other accomplishments in the meantime, like moving halfway across the country but those are stories for another time.

Anyway, the last time I tried early morning coffee it left me nauseous and wondering how anyone could stand anything other than some of the fancy more candy than coffee frappes at a few places in the old hometown. Of course I took note of the posts our hostess did promoting King Harv’s Imperial Coffees and got a chuckle out of their Astonishing Coffee Stories but never thought I’d be…

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Aliens! memes

Using ChatGPT for Your Fiction, Part 1: What is ChatGPT Really?

Novel Ninja

These days, using AI for anything can be controversial, but even more so for creative endeavors. Is it laziness? Will it ruin your book? Is AI going to reduce human artistry to the level of cottage industry?

At the risk of spoilers, I’m not anti-use-of-AI for your writing, but it is a complicated topic that will require multiple blog posts. For now, to figure out if ChatGPT is useful or not, we first have to define what it is, what it is not, and what legal challenges there might be in using AI-generated content.

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MidJourney: Dragons are a girl’s best friend

Riders of Skaith

HOLY CATS THIS IS AWESOME
IDK why MidJourney thought that girls + dragons = books, but IT IS COMPLETELY CORRECT.
GUYS GUESS WHAT, I JUST READ AN EPIC FANTASY NOVEL RECOMMENDED TO ME BY LARRY CORREIA AND–
Obviously a funny one. Probably by Pratchett.
TURN THE PAGE ALREADY SARAH.
CONNIE I DONT NEED TO SEE THE PICTURES JUST KEEP READING
WHAT DID YOU THINK BROWN GIRLS COULDNT READ TO DRAGONS? KEEP ON TURNING THEM PAGES DEENORA! (Kudos to MidJourney there, I was genuinely surprised to see this one.) BOOYA.
Tina hasnt finished her homework on her own for WEEKS.
Amelia: We are never going to get the Spell of UnDerpiness right if you keep blowing the book out of my hands.