Rater's Ridiculously Rambunctious Random Ranter #229

[Rater202]

When my grandmother asked me "how are you?" and I made the mistake of saying "Good, how about you?", I would immediately get an arch response "Well, I hope that I am a good person, but I am certainly feeling well". Even now, years after her passing, I still remember to always answer "well" to "how are you?"

Ah, Nona, I miss you. (She always wrote it with one n in the middle, even though she was a fluent speaker of Italian, and apparently the correct Italian spelling is Nonna. Not sure why.)

...I'm reminded of a class mate in middle school who shared the anecdote of her grandmother chastising her for saying "the food tastes good" with "the food tastes well" and pretty much the entire class telling her that her grandmother was an idiot.

Not to imply bad things about your own grandmother, but that always comes to mind whenever I hear people say things about people who get passive aggressive about being grammatically correct instead of talking like a person.

[enderlord99]

In my opinion, sounding normal (also known as "talking like a person") and following standard grammatical procedure both are less important to being as unambiguous as possible.

I also try to be easily-understood, but I'm terribl[e|y] at accomplishing that, and I only consider it of moderate priority anyway.

[Anonymouswizard]

People who try to stop language changing are fighting a losing battle.

Although I'll defend the singular they until my last breath. IME ambiguity is rare, defenders of new pronouns are still split, and we end up with weird situations where you're using a set of pronouns where none of the variations relate to each other (I still don't understand Die/Hit).

So yeah, everybody's they unless I feel like gendering is particularly important. Like if the person's a boat.

[Peelee]

...I'm reminded of a class mate in middle school who shared the anecdote of her grandmother chastising her for saying "the food tastes good" with "the food tastes well" and pretty much the entire class telling her that her grandmother was an idiot.

What? Badly's an adverb. Who taught you grammar?

Sorry, y'all just reminded me of the most awesome movie ever. If have I bedded the clip instead of quoting it, but alas, Shane Black don't do PG-13.

[SZbNAhL]

When my grandmother asked me "how are you?" and I made the mistake of saying "Good, how about you?", I would immediately get an arch response "Well, I hope that I am a good person, but I am certainly feeling well". Even now, years after her passing, I still remember to always answer "well" to "how are you?"

Ah, Nona, I miss you. (She always wrote it with one n in the middle, even though she was a fluent speaker of Italian, and apparently the correct Italian spelling is Nonna. Not sure why.)

Every time this sort of thing comes up, I can hear Weird Al in my head reminding me that given that I've finished second grade, I should be able to tell if I'm doing good or doing well. Words to live by.

[enderlord99]

Spoiler: A true story which I've shared here before, but not recently

Show

I once had a laptop that was confused about which port was for a mic and which was for headphones. Putting something in the microphone jack disabled the built-in speakers; putting something in only the headphone jack would result in audio streaming through both the thing I plugged in and the built-in speakers. If I wanted to use headphones properly, I had to trick the system by putting what was basically a decoy into the mic port. It was just... a short cable (with the right end) connected to nothing.

[Bartmanhomer]

I really don't understand why some Youtubers wants to stir up drama and drag me in the middle of their drama. I'm sick and tired of their crap and I don't want to be part of it.

[Peelee]

I really don't understand why some Youtubers wants to stir up drama and drag me in the middle of their drama. I'm sick and tired of their crap and I don't want to be part of it.

Yes, you say this constantly.

[Anonymouswizard]

I really don't understand why some Youtubers wants to stir up drama and drag me in the middle of their drama. I'm sick and tired of their crap and I don't want to be part of it.

Probably because they think it increases views? Sadly the drama cycle is neverending, drama must generates views which aren't interested in the Channel's content, leading to the need for more drama to retain or increase the views.

Although drama can backfire, especially for larger channels. I'm sure they've recovered by more, but the #NotSoAwesome movement got me to stop watching any Channel Awesome related content.

Also I recently learnt that most text to speech programs can understand PascalCase.

[Bartmanhomer]

Yes, you say this constantly.

Well my apologies if I sound like a broken record

Probably because they think it increases views? Sadly the drama cycle is neverending, drama must generates views which aren't interested in the Channel's content, leading to the need for more drama to retain or increase the views.

Although drama can backfire, especially for larger channels. I'm sure they've recovered by more, but the #NotSoAwesome movement got me to stop watching any Channel Awesome related content.

Also I recently learnt that most text to speech programs can understand PascalCase.

That I can agree with. Drama isn't content.

[Peelee]

Well my apologies if I sound like a broken record

Imean, the point I was making was that if someone says "I'm going to stop doing X" every 3 months, then one can reasonably guess that the person has not stopped doing X.

For example: I had a friend that said he was going to quit smoking. Constantly over several years, he said he was going to quit smoking. Guess what he never did?

Also, drama is content. It's content that works very well. For a quick and dirty data point in favor of this, you know who those people are, give them views, and discuss them. It definitely works.

[Mystic Muse]

Yeah, I think everyone in this thread would be rightfully annoyed with me if I was complaining about how bad soda is for me every couple of weeks (but it tastes so goooood).

People cam empathize with somebody strugggling to get rid of something toxic to their lives.

Empathy dries up really quickly when it becomes clear the person just wants to complain, and make no steps to actually fix their problem.

[Anonymouswizard]

That I can agree with. Drama isn't content.

It seems that you've not seen my actual point.

Drama is content, and it's very effective content, to the point that channels abandon the content their original followers enjoyed in favour of more drama because that draws in the views.

Now a channel's content changing isn't bad, some channels go through very organic evolutions where the videos they're making now are very different to what they were doing ten years ago. The problem is that YouTube drama is so effective there's very little reason for channels to switch from it.

I hate walnuts. I eat them atmost once a year just to clarify that yes, I still hate walnits.

For example: I had a friend that said he was going to quit smoking. Constantly over several years, he said he was going to quit smoking. Guess what he never did?

Run a marathon?

I've got a friend who's quit smoking about six times. At some point she'll work out why we all stopped caring afters the third attempt.

[enderlord99]

I've got a friend who's quit smoking about six times.

She's paused smoking about six times; put another way, she has taken about six breaks from smoking.

That's not quitting.

I think that's the exact point you're trying to make, but since I'm not sure, I know in all likelihood Bartmanhomer won't be sure either.

[Anonymouswizard]

She's paused smoking about six times; put another way, she has taken about six breaks from smoking.

That's not quitting.

I think that's the exact point you're trying to make, but since I'm not sure, I know in all likelihood Bartmanhomer won't be sure either.

I assumed the next sentence would clue people into that. The only reason I cared about the pausing for so long was because I don't like breathing in smoke.


Like, I've tried to give up LEGO, but it just keeps pulling me back in. But apparently my calls for a Building Blockers Anonymous are just silly. (Okay, I'm not that bad, I spend far more on RPG books than LEGO.)

[Rater202]

My step father said he'd quit smoking several years ago. Didn't even try.

Of course, it's not as bad as my grandma. My sixty-five-year-old asthmatic grandma who has to sleep with a machine to help her breathe and needs to be on oxygen but won't talk to her doctor about getting an oxygen compressor. She knows that she needs to quit but just doesn't care. Says she's too old to quit.

I'm worried about her. Both of my paternal grandparents(and my father's Bio-Dad--it upsets some people when I say I don't consider him my grandfather but I only me him once and didn't know who he was until after he died, so... My father's stepfather was grandpa in my mind) and my maternal grandfather are gone, as are all of my great grandparents and not only is she a chain smoker, she's also starting to slow down in general.

And she's an alcoholic. She denies it but on multiple occasions, I've seen her sit on the couch only getting up to refill her glass until either she's too drunk or tried to stay awake or that box of wine runs dry. She can go a while if she needs to, but once she starts drinking she doesn't stop until she physically can't drink anymore and I'm pretty sure "can't moderate alcohol consumption" is the textbook definition of alcoholism.

And she tries to hide how much she drinks when she's disposing of the boxes, doesn't want the neighbors to know he much she drinks, but yet doesn't think of herself as an alcoholic.

My whole family if sull of chain smokers, alcoholics, overeaters, on both sides, too... It's a good thing that I can't stand the taste of alcohol.

[Bartmanhomer]

It seems that you've not seen my actual point.

Drama is content, and it's very effective content, to the point that channels abandon the content their original followers enjoyed in favor of more drama because that draws in the views.

Now a channel's content changing isn't bad, some channels go through very organic evolutions where the videos they're making now are very different from what they were doing ten years ago. The problem is that YouTube drama is so effective there's very little reason for channels to switch from it.

I hate walnuts. I eat them almost once a year just to clarify that yes, I still hate walnuts.



Run a marathon?

I've got a friend who's quit smoking about six times. At some point, she'll work out why we all stopped caring about the third attempt.

Ok, now I understand more clearly.

[Rater202]

Today, I spent 18 minutes watching four guys with access to industrial-scale engineering equipment build a functioning plasma-based lightsaber.

So... Lightsabers are real now.

Granted, it's not gonna be blocking bullets and, in Star Wars canon terms, it's technically a protosaber since it' has an external power source, but it's a blade of plasma that cut through a steel door so... Yeah.

Today has been a good day.

[Tvtyrant]

Made new friends recently. Not coworkers or reconnecting, but legitimately new friends. I haven't made a new friend in over a year, and probably more if we ignore relationships that don't last more than a few months.

I have held onto enough friends from my life that I'm not totally socially lost, my best friend from kindergarten and I play D&D regularly, two of my best friends from highschool I play mobas with almost daily, but making new friends was a slow decline and it feels amazing.

[factotum]

Of course, it's not as bad as my grandma. My sixty-five-year-old asthmatic grandma who has to sleep with a machine to help her breathe and needs to be on oxygen but won't talk to her doctor about getting an oxygen compressor. She knows that she needs to quit but just doesn't care. Says she's too old to quit.

Reminds me of my father, who had a massive heart attack in his 50s and was advised to stop smoking by the doctors. Thing is, though, in his case he hid the fact he was still smoking from everyone. We're pretty sure that sneaking a crafty cigarette in the toilet was a significant contribution to his death, given he seemed relatively chipper before going but came back gasping for breath...my mother found the smoked cigarette in there afterward.

[Rater202]

Reminds me of my father, who had a massive heart attack in his 50s and was advised to stop smoking by the doctors. Thing is, though, in his case he hid the fact he was still smoking from everyone. We're pretty sure that sneaking a crafty cigarette in the toilet was a significant contribution to his death, given he seemed relatively chipper before going but came back gasping for breath...my mother found the smoked cigarette in there afterward.

She's lying about her drinking to her doctor, too.

I've talked to my mom about staging an intervention but she doesn't think it'll do any good. I used to joke that my Grandma was too stubborn to die but she's retired now but all she does all day is smoke and drink and I don't know how much of that is the pandemic.

And my nature is to worry. A few years ago at New Years she got so drunk that she forgot that her son was my uncle and we had to help her onto the couch to sleep it off becuase she fell and was too drunk to get up on her own. She tends to drink in excess at family get together and then sleep on our couch becuase she's too drunk to drive home and...

Honestly, part of me is scared that she'll overdo it one night and die on our couch in the middle of the night.

[Anonymouswizard]

Made new friends recently. Not coworkers or reconnecting, but legitimately new friends. I haven't made a new friend in over a year, and probably more if we ignore relationships that don't last more than a few months.

I have held onto enough friends from my life that I'm not totally socially lost, my best friend from kindergarten and I play D&D regularly, two of my best friends from highschool I play mobas with almost daily, but making new friends was a slow decline and it feels amazing.

Awesome! New friends are great! Just give it a couple of months before you spring the really nerdy stuff on them


Interestingly the only one of my siblings who smokes is the only one to have a consistent cough or to have contracted pneumonia. On the other hand over got family members who have legitimately given it up, my dad smoked in his youth but hasn't since having kids (I suspect he at least partially used his work as a replacement).

The bigger worry for my family would be alcohol but when push came to shove even my grandad seems to have managed to stop drinking, I suspect partially by not going cold turkey. Plus by about twenty I'd been taught the secret of scratching a gun and tonic out to about three hours of dinner party (the truck is to have it in your hand but not drink it, and people won't try to give you another drink).

[Bartmanhomer]

Imean, the point I was making was that if someone says "I'm going to stop doing X" every 3 months, then one can reasonably guess that the person has not stopped doing X.

For example, I had a friend that said he was going to quit smoking. Constantly over several years, he said he was going to quit smoking. Guess what he never did?

Also, the drama is content. It's content that works very well. For a quick and dirty data point in favor of this, you know who those people are, give them views, and discuss them. It works.

Yes, I understand that now. People do make good money for drama on Youtube. But I don't make drama on Youtube plus I don't make money on Youtube. Even if I wanted to make money on Youtube I probably would make a dollar or two because I don't get many views even though my channel is growing a bit lately.

[Rater202]

Johnathon Hickman took over creative control of the X-Men comics recently, with the intent to destroy their status quo of the last 20 or so years(alternating between genocide and not making strides while isolated off in their own little ghetto of the universe) by having them make their own country. some of their villains have joined up with them, and it's mostly a storyline of Nation Building.

I like it, but some people don't and there are some haters who seem to think that "you're not allowed in our country but we'll give you some cool swag if you promise to stop trying to kill us, also we're going to start traditions to help people come to terms with and take pride in being a mutant" is some kind of cult that proves the Anti-Mutant people right, but that's beside the point.

However, coming this winter is the first Avengers/X-Men crossover Event since Hickman took over, and, IIRC, the first such event since 2012's Avengers vs X-Men(as opposed to events that happened to have both of them. I'm not counting Empyre, for example, becuase that was an Avengers/Fantastic Four event that happened to have an X-Men tie-in. Wolverine was involved in the main story, but only in his capacity as a former member of the Fantastic Four.)

This Event: The King in Black. Which is spinning out of Venom.

I think that's weird that the first major interaction between Avengers and the X-Men in this era is a Venom storyline. And that a Venom storyline is being billed as an Avengers/X-Men crossover.

I say that, so I can ask... Is it weird that I think that's weird?

[Lord Raziere]

like what, are they teaming up to defeat Venom? or is it that Venom is an anti-hero phase and they're teaming up with him for something else?

though King In Black doesn't SOUND heroic, seems very villainish to me, you don't get many modern heroes seeking kingship in things, not even anti-heroes. sounds like he is getting a power up to make sure X-Men and Avengers have something big enough to fight when working together

I don't know, seems like a pretty normal superhero thing to me.

I've been searching up tools to help my writing of novels, like generators and such, hopefully I can find a method to get focused on writing out stories and plotlines rather than setting.

[Rater202]

The King in Black is Knull, God of the Symbiotes. (For context: "King in Black" is meant to invoke The King in Yellow, to give an example of what kind of God he is)

Symbiotes were created by Knull billions of years as a goal to kill the Gods and corrupt and destroy the creations of the Gods, becuase Knull predates the Big Bang and is pissed off that the other Gods polluted his perfect Dark Void with things like stars and planets.

Then a few centues ago, Knull prohjcted his consciousness into Grendal(Basically, a Dragon made of Symbiotes) and sent it to Earth, it fought Thor, Thor smacked it over the head with Mjolnir and this broke Knull's control over the Symbiotes who decided "screw this" and kicked the crap out of him. "Klyntar," the symbiote's home planet, means "Cage" in their native language. The majority of the planet's mass is symbiotes that linked together to contain Knull's unconscious body.

In Absolute Carnage, Cletus Kassady(Carnage) becomes an Avatar of Knull when the Church of the New Darkness(a Cult that worships Knull and has been around ever since some Norsemen were infected with the Gendel's essence) fuses his corpse with the remains of the Grendel(which forms a new symbiote, though it has the memories and powers of the original, deceased, Carnage symbiote,) and goes on a murder spree consuming symbiotes, as well as codices(remants of a symbiote left behind in a former host that keep collecting data on and adapting to the host's mind and body) bot to power himself up and to strengthen his connection to Knull and succeeds in waking him up, causing Knull to escape his prison and reasert control over he majority of the Symbiotes.

and he's heading straight for Earth.

Venom knows, and has warned the Avengers.

[Tvtyrant]

Awesome! New friends are great! Just give it a couple of months before you spring the really nerdy stuff on them


Interestingly the only one of my siblings who smokes is the only one to have a consistent cough or to have contracted pneumonia. On the other hand over got family members who have legitimately given it up, my dad smoked in his youth but hasn't since having kids (I suspect he at least partially used his work as a replacement).

The bigger worry for my family would be alcohol but when push came to shove even my grandad seems to have managed to stop drinking, I suspect partially by not going cold turkey. Plus by about twenty I'd been taught the secret of scratching a gun and tonic out to about three hours of dinner party (the truck is to have it in your hand but not drink it, and people won't try to give you another drink).

We had a long discussion on how Harry Potter wizards have access to teleportation, extradimensional spaces and time travel but choose to live on Earth for some reason, and how having a badly fleshed out setting is part of the appeal because the reader then gets to make up justifications and mechanics. So no worries there :P

My family is all smokers and alcoholics all the way back, I'm the first man of my family to dodge it (part, I suspect, of why I used to be so fat.) Good on your Dad for quitting smoking!

I've been searching up tools to help my writing of novels, like generators and such, hopefully I can find a method to get focused on writing out stories and plotlines rather than setting.

Also character arcs. I think the biggest hurdle is realizing the characters are the most interesting part of the setting, and the structure is about their changes more than the plot. Even 40K books are basically divided into good character driven ones and bad setting driven ones.

[Asmotherion]

Just got a sweet new Gamer Desk.

[Anonymouswizard]

The King in Black is Knull, God of the Symbiotes. (For context: "King in Black" is meant to invoke The King in Yellow, to give an example of what kind of God he is)

Symbiotes were created by Knull billions of years as a goal to kill the Gods and corrupt and destroy the creations of the Gods, becuase Knull predates the Big Bang and is pissed off that the other Gods polluted his perfect Dark Void with things like stars and planets.

Then a few centues ago, Knull prohjcted his consciousness into Grendal(Basically, a Dragon made of Symbiotes) and sent it to Earth, it fought Thor, Thor smacked it over the head with Mjolnir and this broke Knull's control over the Symbiotes who decided "screw this" and kicked the crap out of him. "Klyntar," the symbiote's home planet, means "Cage" in their native language. The majority of the planet's mass is symbiotes that linked together to contain Knull's unconscious body.

In Absolute Carnage, Cletus Kassady(Carnage) becomes an Avatar of Knull when the Church of the New Darkness(a Cult that worships Knull and has been around ever since some Norsemen were infected with the Gendel's essence) fuses his corpse with the remains of the Grendel(which forms a new symbiote, though it has the memories and powers of the original, deceased, Carnage symbiote,) and goes on a murder spree consuming symbiotes, as well as codices(remants of a symbiote left behind in a former host that keep collecting data on and adapting to the host's mind and body) bot to power himself up and to strengthen his connection to Knull and succeeds in waking him up, causing Knull to escape his prison and reasert control over he majority of the Symbiotes.

and he's heading straight for Earth.

Venom knows, and has warned the Avengers.

And this is why I never got into American comics, they feel like they expect me to know random bits of lore from another series six years ago because they're now going to build a plot around how Iron Monger's suit is actually an AI with Swedish citizenship now working as a warehouse security guard.

On theother hand I can understand the appeal, I was the kid in 2005 who was annoyed that Doctor Who hadn't brought back the Cybermen yet.

We had a long discussion on how Harry Potter wizards have access to teleportation, extradimensional spaces and time travel but choose to live on Earth for some reason, and how having a badly fleshed out setting is part of the appeal because the reader then gets to make up justifications and mechanics. So no worries there :P

My family is all smokers and alcoholics all the way back, I'm the first man of my family to dodge it (part, I suspect, of why I used to be so fat.) Good on your Dad for quitting smoking!

I've annoyed people before by pointing out the bad worldbuilding in Harry Potter, people handwaving it instead of tying to come up with explanations is what made me fall out of love with the series back in 2013.

[Tvtyrant]

I've annoyed people before by pointing out the bad worldbuilding in Harry Potter, people handwaving it instead of tying to come up with explanations is what made me fall out of love with the series back in 2013.

Absolutely. I just like to pretend they are one of the portal worlds in a Myst novel, and there are endless subdimensions above them they don't know about where people aren't idiots. HP magic is so extreme that you basically have to handwave it or it gets to "why haven't they gone full Gurren Lagann at this point?"