Interesting Mechanisms

I’m falling in love with the AI, the future is now

one of the best fusion cuisines I've thought up so far: putting a bunch of hot oil in pasta sauces or pesto

it fits so much better than other kinds of hot sauces or spicing up with pepper alone or even just adding chili (flakes) directly

Love, Death & Robots — Fish Night

The simple fact is that in retrospect whatever we do WILL have been either an under- or an overreaction. Either we don’t do enough and it becomes an absolute disaster, or we do just enough, it doesn’t become an absolute disaster, and everyone goes “haha why was everyone panicking? Why did I have to stay at home?” It’s like the Y2K bug, after nothing bad happened it was seen as an absolute joke, but the only reason why nothing happened is that a lot of smart people spent a lot of time and money fixing it. If we social-distance and self-isolate properly and make this go away, it WILL be seen as a joke and an overreaction in the future. That’s fine, that’s the best possible outcome.

PSA

do not buy copper from Ea-Nasir; they are of inferior quality and he will treat your messenger rudely

A helpful guide to some common birds here in the western US

now this sandstorm is rly a party

A bunch of my friends all moved into a big group house called Valinor. I’m not capable of living together with that many other people, but they were kind enough to let me have a small semidetached unit on the same property, which clearly has to be called Tol Eressea.

Even though I got the name kind of by coincidence, I’m happy with it. The theme of the Silmarillion is the conflict between serviam and non serviam. The Vanyar say serviam, and win eons of unbroken bliss by the sides of the gods - plus never appearing in the books again. The Noldor say non serviam, and get the short end of every stick in every wood on Middle-Earth - but are also objectively awesome and everyone’s favorite characters.

The Teleri of Tol Eressea don’t do either. They agree to follow the divine plan, then get distracted by various interesting rocks and pretty trees along the way and show up late for the boat to Paradise. When the gods schedule an extra boat trip just for them, they end up permanently settling on the boat, anchored just off the coast of Paradise - so they can say they technically accepted the offer to redeem them and take them to Heaven, but don’t actually have to live there. They support the divine plan, but they’re just really really not joiners. This is a perverse sort of religion and also one that I 100% identify with.

Tol Eressea is called the Lonely Isle, but I suspect it is “lonely” only in the way Andrew Marvell described Adam before the creation of Eve:

Such was that happy Garden state When Man there walked without a mate After a place so pure and sweet What other help could yet be meet? But ‘twas beyond a mortal’s share To wander solitary there. Two Paradises 'twere in one To be in Paradise alone.

Not all of the Teleri go to Tol Eressea. Elwe stays in Middle-Earth out of love. Cirdan stays out of duty. Others stay to pursue random distractions or their own weird #aesthetic. This is not a people given to spectacular sins of pride the way the Feanorians are. This is a people who accept Law, who love Order, who are willing to contribute and sacrifice as much to its upkeep as anyone else, to defend their comrades and their principles even to the death - but whose concept of Law and Order is basically the gods as a night-watchman state who let them do their own thing. And the gods accept. I know there are some earthly religions who would say this is not an available option - but in Arda, at least, the gods are pretty chill.

The Teleri end up being liminal - less the Sea-Elves than the Shore-Elves or Strand-Elves (see also: “Grey-Elves”). The West represents Paradise and Oblivion, the East represents the sublunary world in all its suffering - so the Teleri live on the eastern fringe of the West, the western fringe of the East, and most of all on the island in the middle.

They are also called the Falmari, or “Singers”. Poe wrote in “Israfel” that the angels sing more sweetly than mortals because their lives in Pardise are so much better than ours down below. Modern sympathies would side with the tortured artist, reverse Poe’s prediction and say that mortals would sing more sweetly - or at least more interestingly - because of the twists and turns of life. Tolkien puts his Falmari somewhere in between. He gives them the master Palantir - allowing them to see everything that goes on in the world of Men - but also gives them Calacirya, the gap in the mountains that allows glimpses of the very center of Paradise. The Singers live in full view both of the glories of Israfel and the horrors of Poe, and they don’t turn away from either. Their music is an attempt at a synthesis - just like the Music of the Ainur before them.

Because of their liminal status, the Teleri end up as conduits. They’re the ones who bring warnings from Valinor to the Numenoreans. They’re the ones who ferry returning exiles back across the Sea. And most important, when the world needed to send a message to the Valar, it was through the work of the Teleri Cirdan (who if you read closely is basically the most competent and impressive figure in the entire history of Middle-Earth), that Earendil was able to invoke the Valar, and the power of Melkor was broken forever.

(thus it is written: “a Teller is someone who calls down celestial energies”. Also, “a Singer is someone who tries to be good”.)

There’s something in all of this that resonates with me. I don’t believe in God, but I like Him. If He exists, I want to be on His side. And I’m surrounded by amazing people, with pseudo-divine plans of their own, and I want to be on their sides too. But I also know I’m not a joiner. I’m not a Vala, involved in the creation of the new world; nor a Vanya, wise and noble enough to utterly subordinate his will to the cause. But I would like to think I can at least be a Teleri - vaguely on the side of Good, working to defend it; not necessarily great at doing it strategically, but pursuing ends closely-enough allied to it that sometimes I’m in the right place at the right time to accomplish something that matters. And even though I am definitely the sort of person to get distracted by an interesting rock when I am supposed to be seeking the Utmost West - to think that overall by a special grace maybe this will serve some purpose for the gods and they will accept the bargain. I’d like to think that I’m in the right sort of liminal position to communicate what needs to be communicated, to those who know less than me - and occasionally to my betters - and that this can have some useful role before the end. So I will accept the name of Tol Eressea and I will build the Lonely Isle.

…except everyone else is already calling my semi-detached unit “the Scottage”, and I have to admit that’s also pretty clever.

sound ON

This is the /an/ post that keeps on giving.

epic sax office 

What football will look like in the future

Something is terribly wrong. Something is terribly wrong. Something is terribly wrong. Something is terribly wrong.

Look at this thing. LOOK AT IT