What are you watching right now?

Cheers, now I'm on season 5. I believe Shelly Long's last season on the show. Which is sad... because I really like her character.

I re-watched The Dark Crystal via livestream with some of my gaming pals earlier today. Fun times!

Reawtched the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
So good. Have seen it 100 times, but my family’s always quoting it so wanted to rewatch.
“This ain’t the armory!”
“Stop blowing holes in my ship!”
“The Code is more like guidelines.”
“Mr Cotton’s parrot, same question” “Ready to sail!”
“They need my father’s blood, the blood of a pirate, my blood.”
“Comandeer. Natuical term.”
“How about 3 shillings & we forget the name?”
5/5

Watched Mario Movie & Ant-Man Quantamania. Won’t give in-depth reviews.
Mario Movie overall good. Mario voice only thing that really bugged me. (Why could they find someone good for Luigi & even Donkey Kong, but not Mario). The ‘easter eggs’ felt natural. (It’s a Mario movie, of course you’re gonna get them) Preliminary rating: 4/5
Quantumania – ugh, it’s as bad as people say. & Kang is as interesting as they say + actor as good as they say. The wokeness isn’t what’s bad, it’s just a bad movie in general. Boring, cheesy, generic sci-fi (& yes Ant-Man is barely more than a cameo in his own movie). Prelminary rating 2/5 (very rare I give 2’s, this movie is that bad)

Saw the new Haunted Mansion in theaters. It was surprisingly decent. The 1st third is very good, the second third drags, then it gets good again at the end. “There’s 999 souls & always room for one more.” Owen Wilson steals the show as the priest & the lead actor is pretty good too. There’s some good horror elements in this too. Preliminary rating 3/5 (really 3.5 but 4 seems too high & I don’t do halves. If the middle third wasn’t such a slog, it’d be a 4 no question)


Once Upon A Time in Anaheim
This is a documentary on the Anaheim Ducks’ (Mighty Ducks of Anaheim) early history. Very interesting. Some things I didn’t know. For example, the Los Angeles Kings owner really pushed Disney to start a team, & (per Eisner at least (Disney CEO at the time)), he only didn’t agree until he realized the city was building a sports arena in town. Also franchises were awared to Anaheim & Florida (the Panthers) before Gary Bettman became commissioner.
Only thing I found disappointing was this documentary, like most documentaries on the team, tend to not cover the 2007 Cup run.

Every now and then I come back to this debate. I probably watch it once a year or more and it's that time of year again . I remember not understanding some of the reasoning initially but over time The Lord has aided me and opened my eyes greatly. While I agree with most of the presuppositional arguments Bahnsen makes, I disagree that it's the best apologetic for establishing the truths of The Lord to non-believers. Like a hammer it's probably one of the most effective arguments for pointing out & destroying Atheist/Secular arguments but also like a hammer it's not the best one for building the house back up. Pragmatically, establishing the truths of God from the existence of creation/nature and pointing them to Christ is one of the ways the Apostles did it (Romans 1:19-21) and also I think it's demonstrably better on average, especially so in this age when the existence of nature is elevated above God. Presuppositonalism may work wonders at demonstrating the truth of God with scholars, however, the Kingdom of God is a kingdom of transformed beggars and sinners.

I hope someone may find this as edifying as I did. Or, Lord willing, even more edifying.

If you want a quick snippet/clip of the debate this is probably my favourite clip from any debate ever (apart from clear gospel presentations) due to the quick wit of Bahnsen.

Paul Ruebens clips.

I like his one and only cameo on Everybody Loves Raymond where he plays Amy's Brother (before being the role was taken by another actor). He plays a comic bookstore owner. He looks so sleazy and disheveled there. So much different than his Pee-wee persona.

One of my favourite essays from C.S. Lewis

Planets vs. Megastructures by Isaac Arthur

Sif said:

Planets vs. Megastructures by Isaac Arthur

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Just finished it and even though a lot of it went over my head I'm on team megastructures while simultaneously using planets as resources. Kinda similar to the Borg from Star Trek or the Quarian migrant fleet from Mass Effect. Though with a planet you do get some kind of long term stability and don't have to worry about constant maintenance. I've found Warhammer 40k strikes a good balance between megastructures and planets. Though given the setting most of them have some relation to being used for combat .

Where do you land?

Tranquil Bondservant said:

Just finished it and even though a lot of it went over my head I'm on team megastructures while simultaneously using planets as resources. Kinda similar to the Borg from Star Trek or the Quarian migrant fleet from Mass Effect. Though with a planet you do get some kind of long term stability and don't have to worry about constant maintenance. I've found Warhammer 40k strikes a good balance between megastructures and planets. Though given the setting most of them have some relation to being used for combat .

Where do you land?

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I think for long term sustainability megastructures are a better idea. However, the material will need to come from many more sources that Earth. The asteroid 16 Psyche, an M Class asteroid, has an estimate $1 quintillion worth of material. It sits in an orbit approximately between Mars and Jupiter so could be useful for bases, refineries, colonies, or whatever in the nearer sections of the outer solar system or asteroid belt.

The major problem with anything off the Earth is that everything is lethal to Humans. Mars has no magnetosphere to protect for deadly solar radiation and its atmosphere is lethal and too thin. Venus is so hot it can melt lead and its atmosphere is 90 times that of Earth and partially acidic. The Galilean moons of Jupiter are bathed in deadly radiation from Jupiter itself (except for Callisto).

Make me think of the quote attributed to Seneca: "Non est ad astra mollis e terris via" (There is no easy way from the earth to the stars)

Sif said:

I think for long term sustainability megastructures are a better idea. However, the material will need to come from many more sources that Earth. The asteroid 16 Psyche, an M Class asteroid, has an estimate $1 quintillion worth of material. It sits in an orbit approximately between Mars and Jupiter so could be useful for bases, refineries, colonies, or whatever in the nearer sections of the outer solar system or asteroid belt.

The major problem with anything off the Earth is that everything is lethal to Humans. Mars has no magnetosphere to protect for deadly solar radiation and its atmosphere is lethal and too thin. Venus is so hot it can melt lead and its atmosphere is 90 times that of Earth and partially acidic. The Galilean moons of Jupiter are bathed in deadly radiation from Jupiter itself (except for Callisto).

Make me think of the quote attributed to Seneca: "Non est ad astra mollis e terris via" (There is no easy way from the earth to the stars)

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I thought the video was primarily talking about it for world building, which is why I mentioned Warhammer >_<. So please ignore that comment lol.

In terms of real life, presumably megastructures would suffer from the need to be built compartmentalised in order to avoid catastrophe from solar flares, a single stray asteroid or several & etc. But wouldn't that pave the way for power struggles? While it's true you can nuke your planet into oblivion, a planet is inherently more resilient to any kind of fallout from political turmoil. Whereas I feel like if somebody had a large enough power base on a megastructure you could essentially hold the whole thing hostage either through a workers strike or warfare which would prevent the structure from access to the required resources it needs in order to not collapse. Anyway like I said before, most of it went over my head so there's probably an extremely simple solution to the human element. Also you clearly know you your stuff so let me not pretend like I can actually hold a conversation about anything to do with space. Thanks for the video, it was fun to think about.

P.S. Epictetus for best stoic

Tranquil Bondservant said:

I thought the video was primarily talking about it for world building, which is why I mentioned Warhammer >_<. So please ignore that comment lol.

In terms of real life, presumably megastructures would suffer from the need to be built compartmentalised in order to avoid catastrophe from solar flares, a single stray asteroid or several & etc. But wouldn't that pave the way for power struggles? While it's true you can nuke your planet into oblivion, a planet is inherently more resilient to any kind of fallout from political turmoil. Whereas I feel like if somebody had a large enough power base on a megastructure you could essentially hold the whole thing hostage either through a workers strike or warfare which would prevent the structure from access to the required resources it needs in order to not collapse. Anyway like I said before, most of it went over my head so there's probably an extremely simple solution to the human element. Also you clearly know you your stuff so let me not pretend like I can actually hold a conversation about anything to do with space. Thanks for the video, it was fun to think about.

P.S. Epictetus for best stoic

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Isaac Arthur, I feel, does come up with some fascinating concepts for world building a sci fi setting.

I divide sci fi into fantasy and hard sci fi. For fantasy I do like the Star Wars setting (minus the Disney stuff), Star Trek, and one called Twilight Imperium (board game and RPG setting). For hard sci fi I like 2001 and 2010 by Arthur C. Clarke, The Grand Tour series by Ben Bova, and Remembrance of Earth's Past by Cixin Liu. Cixin Liu's sci fi work mentions a a potential answer to The Fermi Paradox called The Dark Forest where alien civilizations are hiding for protection and to expose oneself leads to complete annihilation of one's civilization.

Humans will always find a reason to fight. I think since there was a small pond where early Humans went to satisfy thirst there was fighting. I tend to believe Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, that the "state of nature" is one of war or fighting or "short, nasty, and brutish". It's where the ideas of the Hobbesian Dilemma and Thucydides Trap come from. Although I respect Jean Jacques Rousseau in A Discourse on Inequality I do not believe in his "state of nature" theory. The Hobbesian Dilemma or Thucydides Trap is the concept behind The Dark Forest answer to The Femi Paradox.

I do enjoy the Stoic philosophers with Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius as my favorites.

Clowning hard right now streaming the 8/9 Eras show.

TheRealAriel said:

Clowning hard right now streaming the 8/9 Eras show.

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I'm sorry but what you wrote is another language to me. Rich coming from an Aussie I know. What's clowning hard and what's the 8/9 eras? I tried googling it but I only got things related to Elvis

Tranquil Bondservant said:

I'm sorry but what you wrote is another language to me. Rich coming from an Aussie I know. What's clowning hard and what's the 8/9 eras? I tried googling it but I only got things related to Elvis

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Ok… that actually made me genuinely laugh out loud so I appreciate you Taylor Swift is on a tour called Eras right now and some of us crazies who can’t afford to go stream it every night and play a game called Swiftball where we try to guess what will happen that night. Tonight is the last show of her first US leg and it’s also 8/9. She had an album called 1989 that she’s been teasing a re-recording announcement of. We think for that and other ridiculous reasons that she will be making the announcement tonight.

We call it clowning because Swifties notoriously make guesses and conspiracies based on the craziest stuff then look silly when it was totally just in our heads.

TheRealAriel said:

Ok… that actually made me genuinely laugh out loud so I appreciate you Taylor Swift is on a tour called Eras right now and some of us crazies who can’t afford to go stream it every night and play a game called Swiftball where we try to guess what will happen that night. Tonight is the last show of her first US leg and it’s also 8/9. She had an album called 1989 that she’s been teasing a re-recording announcement of. We think for that and other ridiculous reasons that she will be making the announcement tonight.

We call it clowning because Swifties notoriously make guesses and conspiracies based on the craziest stuff then look silly when it was totally just in our heads.

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You're making me feel like I'm 50 years old listening to a zoomer say "no cap we bussin fr fr" .